Don't Let Go of My Hand
by BlueberryAndPancake
Summary: Len held her hand as they grew up together, walking together side by side through childhood as her "big brother". But now the interlocking of fingers means something else to him when he becomes aware of the fact that his childhood friend was, indeed, a girl. And he has to let go of her hand one day. Len x Rin, noncest! Please RxR!
1. Little sister

**A/N: Hello guys, it's BlueberryMuffin and ChocolatePancake!**

 **So we decided to do a fluffy little childhood friend, slice-of-life romance about Rin and Len growing up. Probably gonna start out innocent and go downhill as they enter middle school and high school... and the friendzone (for Len, at least)**

 **Hopefully this wouldn't suck as much as the other story from our previous account, which got hacked.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

Idealistically, any (terribly cliche) story should start out with a description of the green leaves of some random tree rustling in the warm summer breeze intermingled with the chirps of birds and the laughter of children.

6-year-old Len Kagamine didn't really take much notice of the oak tree planted smack outside his bedroom window until today. Yeah, he saw it everyday. It was the first thing he saw when he woke up with a head full of mussed up blonde hair in the morning, and sometimes when he couldn't fall asleep at night, he would often gaze through the spaces between the leaves and branches at the stars spilling their silver glitter over the dark sky while hugging his giant stuffed banana.

Today, he wasn't gazing at the stars. For one, it was daytime. No stars to look at anyways. He was staring at the basketball stuck between the branches of the oak. Oddly enough, there were rustles and bumps and voices in the room of the house on the opposite side of the oak tree. Both the random appearance of the basketball and the commotion in the neighboring house were far more interesting than the stars at night.

His sapphire eyes were transfixed on a man, with a slightly worn out smile, pushing a bed into the room. Len felt a smile crawl onto his face. The bed had a pattern of brightly-colored smiling oranges. Only a kid could own such a bed with a goofy pattern. Maybe the kid liked oranges? The way he liked bananas?

Oddly enough, it just fueled his curiosity more. Len ran out of his room and down the stairs, making his way to the kitchen. His tiny hands grabbed the handle of the snack pantry door and flung it open, proceeding to rummage through the contents.

"Len-chan! What _are_ you doing?"

He spun around to see his mother, Lenka, with a slightly irritated look on her face. The kind of look that mommies had when they catch their child digging through cookies and candy. He was rather well behaved and rarely did anything to land himself in trouble, so it was understandable why his mother would look a bit surprised at him doing something that contrasted his usual mature self.

"Okaa-san, you told me a bunch of times that there's people moving in that house today, right?" Len pulled out a wrapped mini-cake with orange creme. _Ooh. Perfect._ "I think those people have a kid, and the kid really likes oranges. I want to give him this. Or her. Can I please go over?" He made sure not to emphasize the word "please". It often made adults more annoyed instead.

"Sure, but remember not to annoy the new neighbors. They must be very tired from all that moving." She ruffled his hair. "Come back in forty five minutes later, okay? Your father is taking you to buy a new backpack for the new school year."

Len, slipping the snack into his pocket, nodded eagerly and bolted outside, in search of the new kid. He turned his head to see a small blonde girl running around, whipping her head around frantically as if searching for something. She was wearing a slightly smudged yellow and white striped tank top and black shorts, typical of a tomboy. Her white bow bobbed with her every movement.

Ever since he was little, Len had wanted a sibling his age, or maybe just slightly younger than him. Someone that he could take care of and play with and call his best friend. Someone that he could watch tv with after dinner time and hide behind him while he showed off his big brotherly self when the occasional cockroach crawled into the living room. Sure, he had friends back at school, but the year at kindergarden was sort of that awkward stage where everyone kind of floated around between groups of people, still getting to know people and struggling to establish friendships.

When the girl saw him, she sprinted over and stopped with her hands on her knees, panting in exhaustion. Her cerulean eyes stared into his sapphire ones. With their blonde hair and similarly colored eyes, not to mention the rather petite physique, Len wondered in the back of his head if they could easily pass as siblings. Twins, even.

"Hey, onii-chan! You _have_ to help me with something!"

 _Onii-chan_. He felt himself swell with pride. "Yeah, what is it?"

The girl grabbed his hand and pulled him down the sidewalk. Len half-ran, half-stumbled after her, trying to keep up with her speed. "I was playing with my basketball and I tried throwing it in your room to get your attention but it flew into the giant tree and it just kinda stuck there."

"You could've just came up to my house and rung the doorbell..."

"Yeah, but my parents don't want me going anywhere for now. They don't want me to get in trouble or something..." The two blondes skidded to a halt under the tree. The girl pulled her hand out of Len's and pointed up to where the orange ball rested between the branches. "... although I think I'm kinda, you know, in a bit of trouble right now."

He looked up. The branches that cradled the ball were at least ten feet above the ground and an equal distance from between the two houses. Len frowned and looked at his new friend. She was even the same height as him. Both of them had barely hit three and a half feet, so climbing the tree was out of the question, the first branch being around six feet off the ground. "What do you think we should do about that ball?"

She shrugged. "Dunno."

An awkward silence passed by. For a moment, all they could hear was the sound of sofas and tables being hauled out of the moving van.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Len Kagamine. What about you?"

"Rin. Rin Kagene."

 _Hm. Even our names are similar. Perhaps we really could pass off as twins._

Yet another silence passed as they both stared at the ball.

"Maybe I can just sort of go back to my room and climb out the window and onto the tree and grab the ball and _boom!_ " Rin made a pump with her small fist. If they were in an anime right now, a lightbulb surely would have appeared above her head. "The stupid basketball would fall out of the tree and it's all good!"

Len opened his mouth to ask her, hey, wouldn't she kind of worry about falling out of the giant tree? But Rin had already taken off, running down the sidewalk and into her house. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, he sprinted back to his own house and kicked off his sneakers, bringing them upstairs for his, um, "dangerous mission".

"Back so soon?" His mother laughed.

"I'm busy, okaa-san!"

When he got to his room, Rin had already climbed out of her window, balancing her small body on one of the branches. The tree didn't move one bit, its sturdiness fully supporting her weight. Len put on his shoes and took a deep breath. He'd never dreamed of doing this before, but he wanted to show off a little. He couldn't quite understand what a "first impression" was before, but he did know that he wanted her to look up to him as the big brother he wanted to be. Len tentatively grabbed onto one of the branches and stepped into a crook of the tree.

It actually wasn't as scary as he thought it was, really. And Rin, she made her way along the tree like a squirrel. He grabbed onto another branch and stepped forward, climbing his way until both their fingers managed to brush against the basketball. Len looked up at Rin, and she nodded in response. With a push, the ball toppled out of the tree, taking a few leaves and young acorns along with it.

"Woohoo! We did it!" They reached over and smacked a high-five.

"Hey, Len, do you think you can jump down from the lowest branch down there?" Rin positioned herself to descend from the tree, working her hands and feet expertly while she climbed down as if she had been climbing trees her whole life.

"Y-Yeah." _Dang, she really isn't afraid of anything._ Len climbed down after her, noting how she hung off the branch with her small but strong hands before she jumped down, landing on her feet gracefully. Len had read in a book that all cats could land on their feet when they fell off of high places, and he really wouldn't be surprised if Rin just sprouted cat ears and a tail at the moment. He copied her every movement carefully, swinging himself down from the branch.

Again, it appeared to be much less difficult than he feared it would have been. Or maybe he was a cat too.

"Rin-chan!" Her mother walked by, carrying a large box of miscellaneous items. "Can you come back here?"

"Aw, do I have to?" She pouted.

"Honey, your dad and I are really busy and we need some help. Your new friend probably has other things to do, right?"

"I dunno." Rin turned to Len. "Do you have other things to do, Len-chan?"

"I think she means that maybe you should go back and help her unload all that stuff." Len pulled out the almost-forgotten orange creme cake from his pocket and tossed it ro Rin. "Take this. You like orange stuff, right?"

"Woah, thanks a bunch-of-bananas! But how did you know?"

"I saw your bed with happy oranges when your otou-san brought it into your room."

"Ooh, like a detective." Rin fiddled with the wrapper on her cake. "What's your favorite fruit?"

"The one that you mentioned before. Bananas!"

Both of them giggled.

"RIN KAGENE!"

"Oopsie! Don't want my parents to get mad." Rin ran back towards her house, waving at Len. "Let's play again later! I have to help okaa-san unpack some other stuff. Bye bye!"

"Bye! See you later!"

The door behind her slammed shut with a childish BANG so monumental that Len cringed a little. A few shouts resounded from inside the house, presumably scolding her and telling her to close the door more gently next time. And a minute later, all was silent again except for the scraping of furniture on the floors.

Len giggled to himself. Rin was probably the type of person who'd give her parents headaches daily and annoy the heck out of everybody. The type of person who needed someone that could cope with her crazy antics and drag around to get into trouble together and protect her when things went wrong.

The smile on his face grew wider. He'd have a "sister" to get in trouble with.

An unbiological "sister", to be specific. But he was happy either way.

* * *

 **A/N: Chibi Rin and Len are adorable XD**

 **Sorry if it's kinda boring, it's only the first chapter, and we also kind of want the love in the story to develop gradually. Stories of that type are cuter anyway.**

 **Personally, we both think Rin and Len are those couples that act like siblings half the time and an actual couple the other half of the time. Yes, there would be other shippings in this story, just don't go nuts with the shipping wars. Happens all the time with Vocaloids.**

 **But please leave some reviews so we would know what to improve for our next chapter! And, yes, flames are welcome! Len and Rin like to toast marshmallows over a fire anyhow.**

 **Bye~**


	2. The Question That Started Everything

**A/N: Hey guys! It's BlueberryMuffin here. Thanks for the support! We usually don't get this many followers this quickly, haha.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _Len sat at the corner of the sidewalk, drawing pictures in the sand with a small stick. His new yellow-and-black striped backpack was propped against the slightly crooked "stop" sign, the sides of the bag bulging out with the new folders and books in it._

 _"Hey, Len!"_

 _The blonde looked up to see Miku and Mikuo crouching down next to him, staring at the smiling cat scrawled out in the sand. He shrugged and erased the picture with his stick, then flung it to the side._

 _"Whatcha doing?" Mikuo asked._

 _"I'm just waiting for Rin Kagene."_

 _Len had always envied Miku and Mikuo a bit. The two teal haired twins did a lot of things together, and he'd expect to see them them side-by-side for the most of the time in kindergarden when the class had to break up in groups to read a book or sing a song. Like an automatic best friend sort of thing._

 _Well, he had Rin now. Not related like the twins were, but close enough._

 _Miku twirled one of her pigtails around her fingers, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "Ooh, who is she? Is she a new kid? What kind of a person is she?"_

 _Len stood up and looked at Miku, then at the other end of the sidewalk, where he could just make out the figure sprinting down the sidewalk. His lips tugged into a smile. Rin and Miku differed by a mile, yet he was sure they'd click in pretty well. The short-haired blonde girl running towards them was wearing an orange tee with a smiling sun on it, with jeans shorts to match. Miku, on the other hand, was dressed in a ruffly light aqua sundress dotted with tiny silver rhinestones, and her hair was held up in two long pigtails with pink ribbons. A tomboy and a girly girl, but he had this feeling that they'd become best friends, with their motormouthed personalities._

 _"HI GUYS!" She bellowed loudly, swinging herself around the stop sign to come face-to-face with them. Miku grinned._

 _"So you're Kagene-chan, right? I'm Miku Hatsune. What kinda stuff do you like? I like leeks and rainbows and flowers."_

 _"Ah, just call me Rin." She laughed, bouncing up and down. "And I like oranges and sports and a lot of other stuff."_

 _"Hey, we have to go now."_

 _"Yeah, or else we're going to be_ late for first grade _." Mikuo tugged on Miku, and he lifted his head, looking for cars. "For the_ first day of school _. The teachers are gonna be mad."_

 _"Fine, fine." Miku was pulled forward by her brother's hand. "See you guys later! Play with us at recess!"_

 _Rin spun around on the heel of her foot and skipped off the curb of the sidewalk, landing on the black pavement of the street._

 _"Hey, you gotta watch before you cross the street!" Len growled angrily, pulling her back by the collar of her shirt._

 _Rin turned around on her heel and pouted at him. "It's not like there's a lot of cars here or anything."_

 _Len sighed in exasperation. He stuck out his hand._

 _"Here, hold my hand. So you don't get run over by a car."_

 _"I can walk over there_ myself _!"_

 _Len rolled his eyes and grabbed her hand anyways, the way Mikuo and Miku held hands as they started making their way down the street._

 _Big brothers should protect their younger sisters._

* * *

Well, of course they couldn't hold hands _now_ , now that they were in high school. In a nonliteral sense, perhaps Len still held her hand. It wasn't a big mystery that the transition to high school usually served as a slap in the face, and it seemed that Rin always lacked awareness of what was going on. She still needed him by her side to walk her through the entire ordeal.

From what he could see, it was as if some of these people in Crypton High School were living versions of those stereotypical characters in low-quality high school drama novels. You got the nerds, the loners, the gangsters, the cool kids.

Yeah, the _cool kids_. Narcissistic, backstabbing, partying airheads who cared of little else but looks and societal status.

It was easy enough for him to wedge his way into that group in middle school. And when high school rolled around, it appeared that the food chain of the school was pretty much fixed. Though truth to be told, Len couldn't care less about whether he was in the popular group or not. In fact, there were times he preferred _not_ to be. Perhaps it was only because Rin somehow nailed herself a place in there, and he had no choice but to join the clique as well. Couldn't risk having any of those bastards hurt his "little sister", whose naiveté could easily turn her into a doormat for the other people.

Even Kaito told him at some point in time that he couldn't shield her from danger forever, but it was just sort of a built-in instinct that he couldn't really shake off. The instinct to preserve the childlike Rin for as long as possible.

 _That guy really does seem deeper than he looks at times,_ Len thought wryly, looking at his blue-haired friend happily eating away at his vanilla ice cream. Between bites, he was arguing with a few others over trivial matters. Typical for a Sunday, where the squad would often hang out at the local cafe in the middle of the town to have lunch.

Quite honestly, Rin, Kaito, Miku, and Mikuo were the only ones Len truly trusted. If there was an application for the popular kid stereotype, they would have hit every requirement (in which a pretty face took up 50% of those so-called "requirements") except for the "two-faced" or "asshole" aspect. Well, at least he'd have a few people to turn to even if a good amount of the rest of the cool kids consisted of brainless celebrities.

"Hey, hey, Banana-brain-kun, which do you think is a better idea?"

'Banana-brain-kun' kicked Kaito in the leg under the table.

"For what?"

"Homecoming decorations!" Miku piped up, munching on a fried leek. Len really didn't understand how she managed to scrf so many of them down. "Gumi and some other people from the class government told me that you guys are stuck between the Halloween or Under the Sea themes."

Ah, yes. The class government. Towards the beginning of the year elections were held, and Len won as the president by a landslide. Rin had congratulated him on winning for his academic talent, although he highly suspected it was because of his popularity status and physical appearance. Along with Gumi, Rin had actually won as class correspondent, and they were responsible for advertising all the class events and communicating with the rest of the people in the school.

Then again, what so many of those superficial people saw was just a loud tomboy with a doll-like face of innocence; the odd juxtaposition of such traits attracted her a bit of attention, and, well...

 _Yeah, definitely a popularity contest._

"A lot of them wanted a Halloween theme, but it's kinda redundant, since people go trick-or-treating two days later afterwards." Len finished off his banana muffin and brushed away the crumbs. "It's way easier to make and obtain Halloween decorations and stuff like that, but I think the latter sounds much cooler."

"Same here!" Rin dug through her bag, pulling out a folder with a few papers. She passed out the permission slips to the homecoming dance to Kaito, Miku, and Mikuo "We have to start organizing the whole thing as soon as possible, but the other class officers are being lazy butts and kind of holding off on everything. Me and Len will start working, though! I don't think it's _that_ much, anyways."

"You can't have people take advantage of you like that, Rin." Miku pointed out. "We can help you guys out this afternoon, if you'd like."

 _Yup, that's my Rin._ Len sighed and tossed his napkin into the nearby trashcan. _Never knowing whether others were taking advantage of her._

* * *

"Yoohoo, do these look good to you?" Kaito pulled down a helium balloon with a goofy-looking fish.

 _Yeah, really fits the picturesque scenery and romantic atmosphere of the dance. Great job, Kaito._

"It's pretty cute!" Rin laughed, her arms full of miscellaneous decorations.

"Nah, I think you're just visually challenged."

Miku rolled her eyes and hit her brother lightly on the head. Mikuo yelped in surprise. "Can't you be, gee, I dunno, a little less _blunt?_ "

Kaito scowled and let go of the balloon. The navy blue ribbon jerked a little as the fish floated up to the wall, where rows and rows of balloons were lined up. "Well, _excuse_ me. What else can I do, Mr. He-Who-is-Visually-Talented-Sama?"

"Maybe you guys can pick out some art supplies at the other end of the store?" Len suggested. "Some people from the art club offered to make some decorations and we need some materials for the handmade stuff."

Mikuo nodded and walked out of the aisle, followed by Miku and Kaito. "I'll be seeing you guys later, then."

Len turned back to Rin, who was checking the list of items needed for the homecoming dance.

"It's kinda exciting, you know, going to an actual formal dance and everything." Rin babbled happily as she tugged on the ribbons of the many balloons on display, checking out the ones that suited the ocean theme of pretty blues and glittery waters. "I don't think I've gone to one of those before. But it's going to be really awesome, with DJs and food and lots of cool stuff. Although it sucks that there's so much work to do before the dance."

"Well, there's something called 'yelling at the other people to make sure they get off their lazy asses to actually do work'," Len replied sarcastically, catching a few packs of white and aqua balloons that Rin tossed to him.

Rin ignored him. "Oh yeah, aren't you going too? You know that there's a lot of girls going after you, right? Neru-san and Gumi-san told me about it all. Are you going to t-"

He snorted. "Yeah, but none of them really interest me. I don't even know them that well, and all they want is to show off and be all, 'Hey, guys, I got a cool date, are you bitches _jelly_?'"

They bursted out into laughter.

"Take a look at yourself before you comment on my love life," Len added on as he walked over to another section of the aisle, where a large selection of rolls of wallpaper were laid out. Rin pulled out one with a gradient blue, complete with a pattern of pastel-colored fish. Len nodded his approval and added it to the growing pile of items in the cart. "You got a few guys coming after you but everything seems to fly over your head."

"I'll worry about it later. There's a lot more important stuff to do before that." She huffed in annoyance, and whipped out a calculator, making sure that the prices of the decorations didn't upset the student budget. Technically, it was supposed to be the job of Neru, the class treasurer, but she was nowhere to be found.

Len sometimes wondered how much guys meant to Rin. Up through middle school, romance was probably one of the last few things on her mind. Short-term crushes between the people in their school were anything but uncommon at that time, but he was pretty sure that the childish simplicity evolved into something much more complex (and disturbing) once they hit freshman year. Or, to put in the most extreme terms, a cesspool of sluts and players and overly possessive demons and who knows what else.

At least Rin still remained free of these affairs of romance and such, though he wasn't sure for how long.

Probably not for very long.

"Hey, Len, do you think I'd be able to get a date for homecoming?"

 _Wait, what?_

* * *

 **A/N: Again, just the beginning. Nothing much is going on.**

 **Hopefully, this story won't go awry with drama. I feel that it's an element that's necessary for any story involving high school, but it's only good when it's not overused and if it doesn't involve a million characters.**

 **Just (virtually) slap me in the face in the reviews if that happens, 'kay?**

 **Bye guys!**


	3. Taking Her First Steps

**A/N: Hey guys! How's summer so far? Dunno why, but my brain is on fire lately and is constantly urging me to work on this story.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _Grains of golden rolled between Len's fingers as he tried to smooth out the sand in a small purple pail. As per usual, Rin was next to him, chatting away happily and giving a blow-by-blow report of how her day went, from what she ate for breakfast to what score she got on her multiplication test. Next to them were a few other kids in the sandbox, making oddly shaped sculptures with the plastic tools. Just some typical day during recess._

 _"Hey, Kagene-chan."_

 _Both of them looked up at the boy standing next to Rin, a slightly nervous look on his face. Len didn't recognize him, but Rin just smiled and scooched over to the side, inviting him to join them._

 _"Hey, what's up? Oh, just call me Rin, by the way. We need someone to help finish our sandcastle before recess ends."_

 _"Sure, I'll help!" He brightened up, but scowled when he noticed Len sitting on the side._

 _"Why're you always with Rin?"_

 _"Because she's my friend?" Len was confused. Why the unfriendly face?_

 _The three of them were suddenly aware of the girly giggles a few feet away from them._

 _"He told me_ all _about it." A blonde with a side ponytail whispered. "How he has a crush on Kagene-chan, but Kagamine-kun's always in the way and-"_

 _"Isn't this what they call a love triangle?" A girl with lime green hair gasped. "I heard it from the kids over at the middle school, and it's basically when two guys fight over a girl, or when two girls fight over a guy or something!"_

 _"Hey, hey, are you two gonna fight?" One of the girls broke away from the group and nudged Len. The blonde and green-haired girl continued giggling away in the group._

 _"Why should I?" The blonde looked over at her with an annoyed look on his face. "I don't like Rin in that way."_

 _"Aww, then it's not interesting anymore," the girl sighed. She walked back to her group, and a moment later, they ran away to annoy a few other people._

 _Len didn't really understand why some people were so excited about what they call a "love triangle". Honestly, he never really understood love either. If anything, it sounded kind of annoying to him._

 _He shrugged and turned back to the sandcastle, which was just about completed, save for the flower that the boy was giving to Rin, insisting that she stick the plant on top of the tower sticking out from the center._

* * *

Len didn't know why that question threw him for a loop there.

Well, okay, no biggie. Rin had hit that age, she's growing up, it's no surprise that she wants to date.

"I don't see why it's gonna be hard for you." With the cart of materials for decorations, the two blondes started heading over to another section in the art store. "Like I said before, there are more than a few people who are interested in you, and you're well-liked by a lot of people. You got anyone in mind?"

A perplexed look took over Rin's usual carefree face.

"Hmm... lemme think for a moment."

"Hey whatcha guys talking about?" The two tealette twins and Kaito popped out, their arms full of buckets of paint and construction paper and a variety of art supplies. Miku nodded over to Rin, deep in thought and thinking of an answer to Len's question. "Rin looks like she's having a headache or something. Did you ask her something weird?"

"Yeah, well, she can't figure out whether she's interested in any guy or not." Len helped his friends load the items into the overflowing cart.

Miku started to squeal like a schoolgirl, but was quickly silenced by a kick from Mikuo. He patted Rin on the back with a laugh. "Hey, chances are, if you have to think that hard, your heart probably wasn't stolen by someone yet."

"I guess Mikuo's right." Rin shrugged, breaking free of her mind-boggling thoughts. "But you know, now that Len mentioned it, I think there are a few guys who have been coming after me lately."

"Do you like any of them though?" Miku asked with a high-pitched voice. Her brother kicked her again, silently warning her not to let her immature side go amiss, but it was useless this time. "You know that this kinda stuff is going around the school really quickly lately, right? And you know how we're all really popular and stuff, so people talk about it all the time. You probably just haven't noticed it yet. So which one of them do you like? Is there anyone who caught your attention yet?

"I don't think so," Rin answered, laughing lightly, holding up her hands as if to block the endless torrent of questions.

Len had an urge to pry further for a reason he couldn't quite identify, but he noted that her reply was prompt, yet not said too quickly in the flustered manner that would arouse suspicion.

He felt strangely relieved.

* * *

 _A couple days later_

* * *

When Len walked into the school cafeteria, he saw a satisfyingly busy scene before him.

 _Looks like we could get everything done in time, after all. Even if they don't realize that the other lazy people in the student government are supposed to be doing the majority of the work instead._

Large groups of people were gathered around the long tables and cutting out an assortment of shapes from the colorful construction paper. A few girls were stapling strips in different shades of blue together to create an impressively long chain to later hang up on the walls for the dance. Glitter and scissors and balloons littered the messy floor.

He set down the boxes of materials on one of the long tables, searching for Rin. Although the decoration meeting seemed to be quite the success, he still wondered if the class officers were just fooling around again, talking to their cronies and followers.

He spotted her at one of the tables with Gakupo next to her, helping her to design a fish-shaped pinata.

Hm. If he remembered correctly, he had seen that purple haired guy talking to Rin a few times. Len had never really noticed him before, since he'd assume that they were only friends. But homecoming provided an opportunity for potential dates between people to occur, so anything was possible.

A few of the class officers passed by presently. Len spotted a redhead stopping next to Rin, leaning over to say something. Must be Akaito, the class vice president. Though his head was turned away from Len, rendering him unable to read the expression on his face or make out what Akaito was saying, it didn't escape the blonde's attention that his hand gently brushed behind her, resting dangerously low on Rin's back.

Well. _Two_ guys hitting up on her? And one of them had the nerve to be so shameless, too.

Len frowned a little. Wasn't she going to slap that hand away? _Nah,_ _she's just too stupid to realize that the shithead wanted to cop a feel._

Trying to keep his cool, Len walked over to where the three were and set down a box of supplies roughly, shaking the table a bit.

"Hey, sorry, but I gotta borrow Rin for a bit." Len pulled on her arm, dragging her away. "There's a few things I have to ask her about regarding the advertising of the homecoming dance."

Well, at least it wasn't a lie. Gumi was slacking off as the class correspondent anyhow.

Out of his peripheral vision, he could see Gakupo nodding with a half-smile and Akaito rolling his eyes in annoyance. How different the two contrasted.

From the surface, he would roughly assume that Gakupo would be the better of the two. More quiet and reserved and polite. Definitely not one of the leaders in terms of popularity, but still way up there nonetheless. But he was one of the leader of the kendo club, and a rather good one at that, too. And Gakupo was rather well known amongst the students at Crypton for that.

As for Akaito... yeah, just, nope. Len wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. He was _the_ perfect example of the "cool" high school asshole who went after any girl listed under the "hot" or "popular" category, always flaunting his money and pretty face. And the tactic worked awfully well with many of the girls, many of them dying to get into bed with him, only to have their hearts broken in following morning. _Rinse, repeat._

Not that he was surprised. If the zombie apocalypse were to happen right now, those sluts would probably all survive since all the zombies would be going after the people with an actual brain.

"Len, are you okay?" Rin asked, raising her eyebrow. "You know that Gakupo-san isn't a bad person."

So Rin _was_ aware of the fact that the reason he dragged her away was because of those two guys.

"Well, what about Akaito-san?" Len asked indignantly. He found no response to Rin's question for some odd reason, so he just decided to veer the conversation over to the more negative side of things. "If you hadn't noticed yet, he's what people call a _player_. Not the kind of person you want to mess around with."

"Aw, really? He seems like a nice person to me."

Len hated to admit it, but sometimes Rin really was too thickheaded for her own good. She couldn't see through the deceivingly "nice" mask people put on to hide their ulterior motives below. Though he was partially to blame, too, since he had always been shielding her from those two-faced jerks.

"It's only, what, a month and a half into the year?" Len sighed. "The first quarter isn't even over and he's already been in 3 relationships already. Yeah, _if_ sleeping with a girl for two weeks counts as a relationship."

"How can anyone sleep for two weeks?"

An awkward silence followed. The only thing missing was the cartoon effect of the wind swirling in the distance.

"Oh, wait, holy crap. Never mind, I get it now," Rin replied with a mortified voice.

Len wanted to say something, but he thought better of it and bit down on his tongue. Maybe overprotecting Rin was really taking a toll on her, after all.

Kaito was right. He couldn't keep on hiding her from everything. But that didn't mean that he could just stand here while Rin faced the scum of the "cool" group all by herself.

He walked her over to where the lime-haired Gumi was sitting, talking to Neru about what seemed to be some scandalous story of some guy blackmailing a girl into going out with him. When the two girls noticed him and Rin coming towards them, they shifted their bodies and pretended to start working on the many papers laying in front of them. _Yeah, it's not like you two are lazy asses who only bask in the glory of being popular. Nope, not at all._

"Hey, I brought Rin over so she can _make sure that you two are actually working_." He made sure to give off a teasing smile, so as not to come off as hostile. Despite his annoyance, he still wanted to keep the atmosphere light. God knows what kind of drama will happen if something went wrong.

Gumi giggled nervously. "We are working, Kagamine-kun. You know that'd we'd _never_ slack off."

Neru elbowed her in the arm. "Don't try to hide it, idiot. He saw us." She turned to Len, a slightly embarrassed look on her face. "Sorry about that, let's get going here."

At least Neru was the better of the two, even if she was lazy and a bit empty-brained. She still knew how to apologize properly, unlike Gumi.

"No problem, sorry about that." Len gave a nonchalant laugh. "I'll have to go pick up some papers in the office, though, I bring them back later. But for now, just make sure that the number of permission slips and amount of money and number of tickets match up, okay?"

* * *

The tables of the cafeteria were folded up and wheeled out of the way as the hand of the large clock approached 5:00 PM.

Organizing the last of the papers into their respective folders, Len stood up and looked for the floppy white bow sticking above the quickly dispersing crowds of people. And it didn't take him long to spot it, given that it was Rin's trademark hairstyle. And next to that was the trademark hairstyle of a certain purple-haired man.

Len wasn't sure whether to be worried or relieved. He chose the latter, it made him feel a bit better. At least Rin chose Gakupo over Akaito, right? He watched as their bodies turned away and started making their way to the end of the hall, leading to exit of the school building.

 _They're going home together?_

Len didn't remember seeing Rin go home with anyone else other than himself before. Or sometimes if their schedules didn't match up, she'd go home by herself or with Kaito, Miku, or Mikuo. Not some guy that she just met before. Was it something that he should be worried about? He swung his bag over his shoulder and started going after the two.

 _Maybe I should follow them to see that nothing goes wron-_

"Where are you going?"

Len whipped around to see none other than the blue-haired man standing near the doorway. The exact same guy who told him time and time again that he had to let Rin walk by herself one day. Which she is literally doing at the moment.

"Don't you have to bring these ready-made decorations to the gym?"

Len wanted to tell him that there was a storage room next to the cafeteria where the decorations could be stored for now, and that they didn't have to bring everything to the gym until three days before the actual event.

But something clicked in his brain.

 _It was just an excuse to stop me from following them, wasn't it?_

Len wanted to ask him if such was really his motive, but Kaito had picked up another box of the decorations, the large fish-shaped pinata effectively blocking his face and concealing any expression he was wearing on his face at the moment.

But Len's sixth sense told him that Kaito knew. The blonde grinned, giving a silent thanks.

He didn't own Rin. What right did he have to interfere with whatever she wanted to do or whoever she wanted to be with?

 _Good thing you stopped me there. Or I would have done otherwise._

* * *

 **A/N: I think I already introduced most of the major characters here. Probably will pop in a couple more minor ones here and there, but I don't want the character list to go out of control.**

 **See ya'll later!**


	4. Homecoming

**A/N: I'm having an awful writer's block for my other story :/ Ever have that happen to you? And then you figure, "Well, there's this other _really_ good idea..." and you drift off to a different world. I think I'm a victim of that all the time.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _Len tugged on the yellow tie around dress shirt. He frowned a little, feeling that the strip of fabric tied around his neck was just a bit too tight for his liking._

 _He tumbled out of his swivel chair and scrambled over to his mirror to see what he looked like, and he had to admit, he didn't look half bad, despite the fact that he had to wear a button-down instead of his favorite sailor-style shirt. He struck a pose and giggled at his reflection. Kind of strange to be dressed up so nicely, but it was picture day at school, after all._

 _A crash on the neighboring house made him flinch. "What's Rin doing?"_

 _Out of curiosity, he opened his window and carefully grabbed onto one of the branches, taking care not to muss up his freshly ironed shirt. Making his way over to the opposite side of the tree, he spotted, through a crack in her striped curtains, a pouting Rin sitting on her bed, in a frilly blue and white dress. A slightly frustrated mother was digging through a box full of accessories._

 _Len tapped on her window._

 _"Hey, what's up?" Rin jumped over and slid open the pane of glass separating them. She pulled him in. "Aw, you're dressed too! Mommy wanted me to dress me up all fancy and everything, too, but I don't wanna. Just look at this!_ _" She twirled around, making the dress poof out._

 _I don't see why you don't like it,_ I _think it's pretty, Len thought._

 _"Honey, it's picture day! You have to look fabulous for it- oh, good morning, Len-chan." Her mother pulled out a light blue silk ribbon and laid it in front of Rin. "Do you like this? It brings out the color of your eyes."_

 _"That's the kinda stuff people use as an excuse at the mall to make you buy the really expensiv-"_

 _Len kicked her on the shin._

 _"OW!" Rin turned around and snarled at Len. "What was THAT for?"_

 _"I don't think you should annoy your okaa-san any more," he whispered._

 _Rin opened her mouth to protest, but Len patted her on the head and smiled at her. "And besides, you look really pretty today, like a little doll." He took the bow and spun Rin around so that her back was facing him. "All that's missing is this ribbon, and then you'd be_ perfect _."_

 _Len combed his fingers gently through her golden hair and slid the ribbon underneath, pulling it back up around her head to tie it into a neat little bow. All it took was a little coaxing to turn Rin into an obedient little bunny. And with the bow in her hair, she actually_ did _look like a bunny. Rin's mother laughed in amusement behind them._

 _"See, what did I tell you?" He grabbed the handheld mirror on Rin's dresser and held it up. "Perfect, right?"_

 _The smile on the reflection of the shiny surface told him that it was._

* * *

The pencil clacked against the desk as Len finished the last of his homework. He flipped through his notebook, making sure that he didn't miss any of the problems.

With a satisfied sigh, he stuffed his schoolwork into his backpack. Tomorrow was Friday, the day of the homecoming dance, and he didn't want to spend the entire night worrying about his studies. Len learned his lesson about procrastinating in the spring break of sixth grade, but thankfully with the help of hot cocoa and a hyper Rin, he was able to get all his homework done and finally break free of the nightmare. He vowed it would never happen again.

 _Errare humanum est,_ he reminded himself, flipping through the Latin textbook lying next to his backpack. _To err is human._ Len skimmed his eyes once more over the page of quotes he had to memorize and closed the book.

As he started to pack up, his cell phone buzzed beside him, the soft white glow illuminating dark corner of the room where the light of his desk lamp didn't reach. Len scooted over and brought the phone closer to him, opening the texting app.

 _"YOOOO LEN!_

 _GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TODAY :D"_

 _-Rin Kagene_

He threw the phone onto his bed, suddenly a bit unsure of what to say. Well, the only thing that she could be _so_ excited about that she had to text him in the dead middle of the night, right before the day of the _homecoming dance_ , with an excessive amount of caps and exclamation points...

Psh. He always saw through her like glass.

 _Gotta play dumb anyways. Humor her a little._ He finished tossing the remainder of his binders and pencils into his backpack, then rolled onto his bed where his cell phone laid, still buzzing with the messages of an excited Rin.

He didn't know why, but his index finger was just a little hesitant to press the "send" button.

But the moment of hesitation disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

 _"WHAT IS IT RIN?! :D"_

 _-Len Kagamine_

Actually, now that he thought of it... he couldn't _really_ see through her like glass. Len always thought that people, especially one as close to him as Rin was, were easy to read, their intentions decoded effortlessly by him no matter how many masks they layered on to hide them. But the past few days, he had discovered that it really wasn't as simple as he thought.

Len snorted. He felt a little ashamed at his arrogance. _How overly presumptuous of me._

Right now, he couldn't completely decipher what was going on through Rin's mind. Even their decade-long bond didn't give him the power to psychologically unravel the entirety of her brain. Sure, the messages that popped up in rapid succession on his phone at the moment matched his previous predictions, but there was something about Rin that he couldn't exactly place his finger on at the very moment...

Oh. So she was not _really_ going with him as a date, but just as friends for now.

That was a relief.

Rin only started to really talk to her "homecoming date" about two weeks ago, so she couldn't possibly have developed any strong feelings for him yet, right? At the _very_ most, it was probably just an innocent crush at the most minimal level.

And what about Gakupo? Len didn't really know much about him. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to join the kendo club and see what the two were up to? Len had always been a bit interested in the art of swords and the like, anyways, and he wanted to join a few other clubs as well. But his main concern was, well...

 _Shit, why the heck am I getting so worked up? I really need to stop overprotecting her from everything like this._

The blonde gritted his teeth and pushed that idea out of his head. Perhaps he was fooling himself, but Len's mind forced to convince himself that his concerns over Rin were just the reluctance to let her grow up, much like a worried parent. Or like an older sibling, in his case.

 _I'm her "older brother". It's no surprise that I'm worried over her._

He replayed that phrase over and over in his head until he felt that he had brainwashed himself enough, at least for the time being.

* * *

 _Friday night_

* * *

Len waited at the entrance of the school gym, which had magically been transformed into a sparkly oceanic scene, complete with light colored aqua and white balloons, soft glowing lights of the blue variety, and figurines of pastel colored fish hanging from the ceiling. Music and flashing lights filled the air. Within the depths of the room were people already gathering in small crowds. Among those people were Kaito, Mikuo, and Miku, along with a few others that he wanted to hang out with, but he told them that he wanted to wait a bit before joining them.

Len checked the clock, which had even been laced with turquoise ribbon, much to his amusement.

Well, if Rin were to go over her "date's" house before, it would make sense that she would be a little late to dance.

He kept reminding himself she wasn't _really_ going on a full-blown date, since Gakupo had wanted to "go as friends for now."

 _"For now"._

Len didn't know whether to feel relieved or worried. Well, he'd feel relieved that Gakupo knew how to take things slow, but the intention behind that was what really worried him. That _"for now"_. Because didn't it mean that the purple-haired man wanted to go out with R-

"LEN~!"

He stumbled back as a figure tackled him from within the shadows. And except for a certain someone, there was no other person in this entire school who was capable of tackling him like this.

"Hey, hey, you shouldn't be like this when Gakupo is nearby, you know? Even if he isn't really your 'date'." Len gently set her straight, pulling on his black jacket to smooth out the wrinkles. But when he looked up, he felt something run through his veins, though he couldn't quite identify what it was.

"Oh, wow, Rin, you look... really pretty."

The figure standing in front of him was anything but the loud and spunky tomboy he knew. The loudmouthed blonde had somehow been transformed into something much more feminine and soft, donned in a ruffly dress, colored a light aqua and trimmed with dark blue lace. The skirt had a sheer material covering it, complete with small swirls of white sparkles. And, uncharacteristic as it was for her, she was even wearing makeup.

Len wasn't sure how to put it into words, but he did know that "beautiful", let alone "pretty", was too much of an understatement to describe Rin at the moment.

The blonde girl giggled. "Of course I look pretty. Miku and Gumi and Neru took me out shopping a week before, and they _really_ know how to dress up and everything. I realized that I've never really gotten all fancy like this before, so I thought, well, why not?" She turned back into the crowds, waving a goodbye at Len. "Sorry, gotta get going now. Gakupo's waiting. I'll join up with you guys later!"

He waved stiffly and made his way back to where his other friends were waiting at the snack table.

"Hey, what happened to Rin?" Kaito took a lick of his vanilla ice cream.

"She's with Gakupo right now." The blonde shrugged and took a sip of his drink, the flavor of the tropical fruit variety. What an odd combination it made with the strange bitterness he tasted in his mouth right now.

"Why don't we drag them over to the photo booth?" Kaito suggested. "Miku's been waiting to try on that shark costume there, and she looks _fin-tastic_ in that."

"That pun was awful." Mikuo grimaced, followed with a facepalm from his twin sister.

"Well, if you can think of another one worse than that, _just let 'minnow'._ " Kaito bellowed out in laughter.

Len didn't know whether to laugh or kick him in the shin, so he just chose the latter.

After hanging around for a while, they headed down to the back of the gym, where the storage room had been turned into a place for the photo booth. People were taking ridiculous pictures, complete with costumes and feather boas and sunglasses. (And, of course, the "duckfaces" people made at the camera. Ugh.) Waiting a couple spots in front of them were Rin and Gakupo laughing about something.

Len realized that he must have been staring, as Rin caught his eye and turned back, whispering something to Gakupo. The purple-haired guy nodded and walked over to where the others were.

"Hey there, how's everything going?" He gave them a small smile. "Rin told me that the photo wouldn't feel 'complete' if you guys weren't in there. You mind if I join?"

"Yeah, sure, the more the merrier!" Miku replied happily and made some room in the line where the two could slip in. Kaito slapped a high five with him.

"Hey, move over, Miku, you're squishing me up against the wall!" Mikuo complained.

She stuck her tongue out at him childishly. "Not my problem."

"Yeah it's not 'your' problem, because _y_ _ou're_ the problem here."

Rin laughed next to them.

Len noticed how she was standing closer to Gakupo than next to _him._

He couldn't help but be a little jealous of the two twins bickering over some stupid matter. Mikuo and Miku didn't need to be jealous of some random person coming along and dragging the two apart. Because their bond was protected by blood, something that was absent between Rin and Len. _They_ didn't have to worry about something threatening their connection.

 _How nice._

And yet when he looked out of his peripheral vision at the smiling girl, Len came to a horrifying realization that after today, he might no longer look at Rin as Mikuo did to Miku. For he no longer looked at Rin as his "little sister".

 _And I'm not her "older brother"._

 _Not anymore._

* * *

 **A/N: *insert dramatic music here*  
**

 **Oh, just a heads up here. I'm not going to be around from July 18 to August 11, since I'm going to be in Taiwan and China during that time with my relatives. Probably won't upload during that time.**

 **Just wanted to tell you all, once I was at this place where there was a bunch of Japanese merchandise and the like, and apparently there was some anime kind of a thing nearby, so I went to poke around. Ended up getting hit on by an overweight man cosplaying as Hatsune Miku and another one as Konata from Lucky Star.**

 **Aw, dang it, now I have this urge to go to a corner in the room to reminiscence about those horrifying moments of my life.**

 **See ya later~**


	5. Drifting Away

**A/N: Hello guys~ This week was kinda hectic. Fourth of July celebrations, injuries, physical exams for cross country...**

 ***cough andbythewaymeandChocolatePancakeareofficiallytogether cough***

 **Welp. Time to get going on this story... *sweatdrops and slowly edges out of the room***

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters**

* * *

 _"And now, the weather."_

 _Click._

 _"Oh~ who lives in a banana under the sea..."_

 _Click._

 _"A brown-haired woman of unknown identity had stolen 30 bottles of sake from the-"_

 _Click. Click._

 _Len rolled around on the couch and munched on potato chips. Somehow, tv didn't really interest him at the moment. He sighed and turned it off, wondering what else there was that he could do now that he had finished all his homework._

 _Oh, yeah, what was up with Rin? He ran up to his bedroom, where he could climb out through the window and onto the tree. She hadn't played with him lately, and everytime they went home together, it seemed that she was always in a rush to do things. She'd even turned her friends down a couple days ago when he and Kaito invited her to go to the cafe, or when Miku and Mikuo invited her to go shopping yesterday._

 _When he got to her bedroom window, he could see that she was on the ground, working frantically on a poster. Len tapped on her window._

 _She jumped up, startled a little. A smile broke out on her face, and she slid open the window to let Len in. He noticed that she looked really tired, the white bow tied upon her head even drooping a little._

 _"Hey, how's life?" He looked at the poster. "Looks nice, is it a project?"_

 _"Yeah, a_ group _project." Rin huffed in annoyance._

 _"Oh..." When Len looked closer, it seemed that all the words were in Rin's handwriting, and all the pictures were drawn in a similar manner. "Didn't anybody work with you on this, though? Where are your partners?"_

 _She sighed and went back to her project. "Yeah, but they're all partying someplace. There's this kid who had some big thing going on for her birthday today. She invited me, too, since she said I'm 'cool' or something. But I didn't want to go. Can't go, either."_

 _"Yeah, but why're you the only one doing thi-" Len cut off his words and sat down beside her, grabbing a piece of construction paper. "Here, you know what, I'll help you."_

 _"No." Rin grabbed the piece of paper and looked at him straight in the eye. Len flinched a little, surprised at the sudden change in her tone, but he just laughed and dropped the piece of paper. Rin could be uncharacteristically determined or independent sometimes._

 _"I can do this_ myself _, Len."_

* * *

Kendo Club, Courtyard.

Len looked at the flyer in his hand to confirm that he was indeed at the right place and pushed open the door to the outside of the building. About forty or fifty people, boys and girls alike, were all over the place, some of them on benches, some swinging the wooden swords, and a few others being instructed by the seniors of the club.

He immediately spotted the giant white bow among the people. Rin was practicing a few defense moves with a person, her movements quick and light. A few boys behind her were cheering her on (it wasn't news that she attracted quite a bit of attention from the opposite gender). For a moment, Len was worried that she would hurt herself, as it looked more like an actual match than practice.

But her speed proved her to be a formidable foe, and, well, even if Rin _did_ hurt herself from her usual clumsiness, she had high pain tolerance. Perhaps all those years of accidentally falling down the stairs or out of trees had rendered her immune to pain, to an extent.

When Rin spotted Len out of the corner of her vision, she signaled her partner to stop and walked over to him.

"Hey, what's up? You're kind of late. It's class president duties, right?" Rin elbowed him in the ribs, tossing Len one of the kendo swords from a nearby box. He caught it neatly and gave a small swing. She smiled and pointed over to where Gakupo was instructed one of their classmates. "Go over there and I think he'll give you pointers on where to start practicing and stuff."

Despite the recurring worries about his childhood friend and the purple haired samurai, Len actually found himself enjoying kendo. And he had a knack for it, too. Sports involving skill was much more of his type, rather than those with brute strength such as football.

After a while, Len took a break from practicing his swings with his wooden sword and sat down on a nearby bench, where Rin was resting as well, talking to couple of her friends. She had joined the club earlier than him, so it would be understandable why she was pretty good at it. But her natural athletic talent did give her quite the advantage amongst the others, her abilities already rivaling even that of her seniors. Including Akaito, who just so happened to come by at the moment.

The redhead sat down, and a few of the girls turned their attention towards him. Some of them were more subtle about it, slowly bringing him into their own conversations. Others just straight-out fangirled like the idiots they were, batting their eyelashes and talking in fake, high-pitched voice and sitting in a position that could give Akaito a good view of their, um, shall we say, more _intimate_ body parts.

Len had been subjected to this form of idiocy before from the "hot" girls, but after he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with such promiscuity, they had stopped making those types of moves towards him, thankfully. (Unfortunately, there would always still be a few of those people, though he just did his best to ignore them.)

Miku rolled her eyes and leaned over to Rin, whispering something. The tealette, despite being friends with those brainless fangirls, seemed to never hold a bit of a attraction towards Akaito. But Len did notice that, lately, she and a certain blue-haired guy...

"Len?" Rin turned to him, a slightly confused expression on her face.

"Yeah?"

"Can you define 'attention whore'?"

Miku giggled in the background while Kaito whacked her lightly on her head. Len gave them both a glare and turned back to Rin.

"Um, you see..." _Insert sweatdrop right here._

"Hey, Rin-chan? What's up?" Akaito edged closer to the blonde girl. Uncomfortably close, Len would have said. But Rin seemed to be clueless about his invading of her personal space. "I'm really amazed by your skills at kendo."

 _Akaito, you never give up, do you?_ Len snorted.

"But you have to take care not to hurt that cute face of yours, alright? Though I do like the fiery look on your face when your sparring." The redhead leaned in closer. Len was ready to bean the asshole over the head with the closest item within his reach. And unfortunately for Akaito, it was some student's violin case. The hard kind.

The (disgusting) smile widened. "You know, Rin..."

Len felt his hands drift over to the case.

"On Friday night, I was thinking..."

His fingers curled around the handle-

"Hey, um, guys?"

All heads whipped around to see Gakupo. "Is it okay if I talk to Rin-chan for a minute?"

She nodded, her white bow bobbing up and down. A few of her friends moved over to the side, making room for her to get up and walk through. Len could hear a few stifled giggles in the background as the two made their way around the corner of the school building, where no one could see them.

Probably since Gakupo had that nervous air about him, his forehead slightly sweating from not just his kendo.

They didn't say it, but they knew about it.

* * *

 _About an hour later_

* * *

Len stood at the corner, next to the nearby cafe. He and Rin, along with their other friends, often passed by here on their way back home. He waited for a long time, but Rin finally showed up, walking by herself.

"Oh, hey. Where's Kaito and Miku? I know Mikuo went home early."

"Them? They went to the library to research on an accounting project."

The two blondes walked down the sidewalk in silence. Len looked over at Rin, who seemed to be contemplating about something serious. He could guess what it was. She just needed him to prompt her on the topic.

"Hey, Rin, what happened? You're kinda quiet today?"

"Gakupo-san asked me to hang out today, just me and him."

Len didn't say anything.

"I mean, I've hung out with only you, and a few times with Kaito or Mikuo before, but somehow this feels a lot different. Because you guys are my real close friends, but I don't really know that much about Gakupo-san yet." Rin fiddled with a strand of her golden hair, a flash of nervous excitement shining in her blue eyes. "He didn't really say whether it was a date or not, but I figured it is. But a _really_ casual one, otherwise he would have-"

"Yeah, well, have you thought about it through?" Len snapped, making her flinch a little. "You know that he's hinting that he may want a relationship, otherwise known as _two people going out_ , unless if you're too thickheaded to know that."

Rin gave him a quizzical look, surprised at the sharp tone in his voice. "Uh, it wasn't a confession or anything, don't make it such a big deal..."

Noticing his sudden change in attitude, Len quickly pulled himself back and covered up his snarkiness with a light laugh. "Don't worry. What I was saying was, do you need any tips on dating or...?"

"Nope. Len, you've already guided me through a bunch of stuff already." Rin looked up at him with bright blue eyes and gave her trademark I-can-do-this grin. "Thanks for the offer, but I need to do this by myself."

Len shrugged nonchalantly and gave another laugh. For now, he just decided to listen to Rin's chatter the entire way home.

Somehow, he realized that such was the same routine for the times when they went back home together from school. Rin's report on how her day went was a subconscious way of asking Len whether she was doing anything right or wrong. When she complained about some fight between friends or a bombed test, it was his job to tell her what she should do next time to avoid the same troubles. When she talked about something stupid she had done, it was Len's job to scold her.

And when she talked about some thirsty asshole touching her butt during gym, or suggesting for her to do some of _those things_ (God forbid that Rin understood them, though it was a miracle as to how she passed health class), Len would have marched over with some holy water, pepper spray, cyanide, and a machete to-

Okay, maybe not _that_ extreme. Cyanide by itself would have sufficed.

So when she was telling him about the stuff with Gakupo a while ago, wasn't she also asking for his advice?

But Rin clearly said it herself this time that she _didn't_ want Len to help her through this.

Even so...

He bit down on the inside of his cheek, using the pain to distract himself from his thoughts. Thankfully, they were already approaching home.

"Well, gotta go now. See you later, Lenny~"

 _Don't call me 'Lenny', Rin._

 _It hurts._

He merely waved back without so much as a "goodbye". His throat felt dry and cracked, even though he hadn't said much for the past few minutes. And he didn't know why, but after the door shut behind her, he stood there for a few seconds, just looking at the shut door as if in some odd trance. Like somebody just left him, forever and ever.

Part of Rin was still there, but her label as a helpless little sister, _his_ helpless little sister, wasn't.

* * *

When Len got finished his essay project, he noticed that his throat was still feeling dry from the walk home with Rin.

Throwing down his pencil and slamming his English notebook shut, he headed over to the fridge to see if there was anything that he could do to get rid of the dryness.

Len guessed that his mom would probably stop at the supermarket on the way back to work, because a carton of orange juice was all that was left in the shelf on the side of the refrigerator.

Rin's favorite drink.

He poured himself a glass and took a gulp, the cold, sweet liquid quickly quenching his thirst.

The dryness vanished, but it was quickly replaced by a lump in his throat.

He took the glass and flung it at the sink, his ears taking in every bit of the clang of the glass shattering against the wet metal surface. An eruption of orange juice splashed out and trickled down the drain. The noise of the glass exploding resounded in his head, the only thing his brain could register at the moment. The melody was somehow satisfying, in a twisted way.

Len stared at the mess for a while before he cleaned it up and resumed working on his homework, never saying a word.

* * *

 **A/N: Just wanted to make a small note here.**

 **I'm trying to make the pace of the story slightly slow-paced (in terms of Rin and Len's relationship, at least) in an effort to maintain the realism aspect. However, combined with the fact that I want to steer clear of certain cliches, it can get difficult.**

 **Kinda like how you're trying to control the speed while sledding down a snowy hill but at the same time you have to avoid all the rocks and trees that pop out along the way. _Literally_ a pain in the ass.**

 **Until we meet again!**


	6. Definition of a First Kiss

**A/N: Whew! Sorry for the somewhat late update... me and ChocolatePancake have been quite busy and our schedules sometimes don't really match up to to write fanfiction together. Stuff doesn't work out between us if one is missing; gotta need two halves to make up the whole.**

 **... that sounded like a reference to Rin and Len.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _"You know, I've always been fascinated by how_ weird _anime is," Rin scoffed, taking a handful of popcorn and shoving it into her mouth._

 _Len nodded in agreement and took a drink of soda. Both of them were flopped down on Rin's bed and watching a late night anime. It showed a rather bloody battle exploding out between two fighters._

 _He yawned and rubbed his eyes. He didn't mind, though. It was an unspoken rule that the only thing that didn't happen at sleepovers was sleep._

 _"Like why do people_ always _shout out whatever their next move in fighting is?"_

 _He shrugged._

 _"KARATE CHOP!"_

 _THUNK._

 _"What was_ _THAT for?" Len rubbed his shoulder, growling angrily. Rin cackled evilly, and h_ _e narrowed his eyes. "Oh, so you want to fight, huh?"_

 _The corner of Rin's mouth quirked upwards. "Yeah,_ try me _."_

 _Hair, arms, and legs went flying._

 _Rin's door was opened by a very sleepy Mrs. Kagene._

 _(Fast forward ten minutes later)_

 _"I swear to God, Rin, if you keep acting like this, we're going to get grounded from having future sleepovers." The two blondes were watching a (less violent) anime this time, both of them scowling from the scolding they received earlier._

 _"Yeah, well, it was_ you _who started the fight," Rin retorted._

 _"Mm hmm. Who was the person who threw that first punch-"_

 _"Oh, hey, look, they're about to kiss!"_

 _He looked at the screen. The guy and the girl were both blushing and trembling in an overly dramatic fashion, their faces an inch apart._

 _Len laughed. "It won't work out."_

 _As expected, the door behind the anime couple was flung open. In walked in their group of friends, and two broke apart in a scramble of arms._

 _Rin whined in annoyance. "Why does a kiss always have to get interrupted?"_

 _"I guess it's just how things work in anime. Cliches, they call it."_

 _"Or, why does one of them chicken out in the end?"  
_

 _"Dunno."_

 _"And if it_ does _work out, why does the girl always slap the guy senseless and say something weird like 'I need to be more honest with my own feelings'?"_

 _"I don't know, Rin. I don't know."_

* * *

Len's hands brushed against the video games lined up neatly on the shelf, checking out the newest releases.

Or, rather, he was _pretending_ to check them out.

His eyes were instead focused on the laughing blonde a few shelves in front of him, holding up an opened game guide and talking to was probably involved in a discussion of which strategy was the best to escape out of a dungeon of some MMORPG game. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there. In fact, it seemed so ordinary, so _natural_ that Len was almost a little surprised.

He frowned a little. There were a few things that she could definitely improve on. Like actually showing her more feminine, soft side. Unlike other girls on their first dates, she wasn't dressed up or acting more ladylike than usual. But, well, it _was_ a casual date after all, and, knowing Rin, she probably just treated it like some regular hangout.

Sure, he knew that he could ask her about it when they met up at her house later to work on a project. But there was that gnawing feeling in his mind that made him feel compelled to follow her and Gakupo.

 _I just want to make sure she doesn't mess up her first date. First times are important for girls. First crushes. First time holding hands._

 _First kiss._

He felt himself nearly recoil in anger at the thought of the two _kissing._ However, when he looked up again, he was relieved to find that there wasn't much of a romantic atmosphere between them. The slightly sour look on his face melted into his normal expression, but he felt a twinge of shame for feeling the relief he experienced just then.

If he was supporting her, shouldn't he feel otherwise?

His ambivalence was bothering him.

"Ah. Didn't know you liked Pokemon too." A pair of hands, manicured in a bright yellow, picked up a 3DS game on the rack.

He turned his head around to see a certain girl with her trademark long golden ponytail, held to the side with a dark blue scrunchie. She had apparently been shopping, as her right arm held a few paper bags with new clothes folded up neatly in them.

Len was taken aback for a brief moment. Usually, the people in the more obnoxious part of the popular group (the gossipy, somewhat bitchy ones, where Neru often hung out with) wouldn't have admitted that they played with, let alone liked, these types of video games even if one were to hold a chainsaw to their throats.

He grimaced on the inside, thinking of Rin's past conversations with one of those idiotic girls.

 _("You're SERIOUSLY playing with that nerdy shit? I'd rather kill myself before one of those games ever touch MY hands."_

 _"And I'd rather cut off my ears than listen to your bitching.")_

Yup. Classic Rin.

Neru looked up at Len. "You alone right now?"

"Yeah."

Neru put down the game and looked around nervously. "Ah, well, that's good. There's... something I want to tell you." She turned to face Len, her eyes darting about and her fingers twitching a little. "Can you come outside with me?"

Something lurched inside him, and Len had a pretty good idea what was about to happen. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"It's kind of sudden... But I want to confess..."

He gulped. If anything, he was more nervous than she was. It wasn't the first time that he had been in this situation before, and he had a feeling that it surely wouldn't be the last, given that there were still three more years of high school to go.

"I've kind of... liked you ever since somewhere in middle school last year, and, you know, my crush had been growing stronger and stronger with each day passing by." She blushed and trembled a little, but she maintained her eye contact. "And, um, I hope that you can return these feelings to me, and that we could go out and all that..."

Her voice trailed off when she took in the expression on Len's face.

Neru knew right away.

More often than not with girls, they would have planned out a day, an outfit, type of makeup, and a list of about 6.02 x 10^23 things to do on the day of the confession. Obviously, this wasn't the case. They had just ran into each other by coincidence. Whether those techniques helped improve the chances of success rather than rejection, Len didn't know, but no matter the case, he knew that his heart belonged someplace else.

"I'm sorry." He struggled with his words, his throat feeling cracked from the guilty feeling in his heart. "Look, Neru, it's not because you're a bad person or anything..."

Len looked up at her amber eyes, but immediately dropped them back down to his feet, his tongue going dry.

You'd figure that after rejecting people a couple times, he'd feel pretty used to it already. But, no, guilt always slapped him in the face whenever something like this happened. He dropped his eyes down to his shoes, feeling terrible. The silence that passed by felt painfully long.

 _It's only because the person I love is..._

"I understand."

Len still kept his eyes transfixed on the ground.

"Neru, I'm really s-"

"Hey, don't be feeling apologetic over this. Heck, _I_ should be the one who's all depressed over this entire thing, you know?" Neru grinned at him and whacked him hard on the back. Len was slightly relieved that she bounced back so quickly, but part of him was still wondering whether she was just using this cheerful facade to hide her pain inside.

"But that doesn't mean I'm not angry at you for breaking my heart." She stuck her tongue out at him playfully.

Both of them laughed.

"Just kidding. Though I guess I'd need a little time to wrap my head around everything that happened and eventually move on." She picked up her bags and started heading into the neighboring shop, waving back at Len. "See you around sometime soon."

It seemed as if in that short span of time, something had clicked in his mind.

Len never really noticed Neru before, didn't really hate her or like her. He'd just assumed that she was another member of the "brainless cool people" category simply because she hung out with them. But she appeared to be completely dissimilar to her usual self when none of those people were around. The confession seemed so unrehearsed in a way that made her appear innocent and completely untainted by those "bitches" that she so often associated with.

He realized he'd never really hung out or even had a good conversation with any of them before, perhaps because he was prefaced with a lack of trust of anyone from that general group of people.

 _Maybe I'm the judgmental one myself, but what do I know?_ The blonde made his way back to the store.

 _I'd like to be friends with Neru, maybe find out what those other people are like. It didn't seem like she'd hold a grudge on me for that rejection._

Len didn't know how much he hurt her, but he really wished she could find happiness as well.

He went back to find Rin and Gakupo, but they were nowhere to be found.

* * *

 _The next day, late afternoon_

* * *

The sound of his fingers typing on the keyboard of his laptop and his own thoughts running through his head were the only things that Len could hear the most clearly. Rin's chatter was merely background noise compared to his inner monologue at the moment.

Besides the fact that he was still worked up over the fact that Rin had her first date, part of him was feeling awkwardly uneasy with him and Rin being alone together, in her house. In her _room._ And her parents weren't home.

All the way up until their first year in middle school, he'd feel quite comfortable around Rin when they were alone and just fooling around in their rooms. Mind you, not _that_ kind of fooling around, just stuff like telling horror stories and creating dangerous science experiments and beating each other up over who was the best at some game on the Wii. Hell, they'd even randomly have impromptu sleepovers every now and then.

Yeah. All fine and dandy.

Then this little bitch called _puberty_ came along.

"Hey, Len." He turned around and flinched at Rin's sudden close proximity. "Can you look up the properties of alkali metals again? I'm doing the stuff on noble gasses right now."

"Yeah, sure..." She flopped back down on her stomach on her beanbag chair ,where her laptop laid. Presently, her loose shirt rode up a little, revealing a bit of her back. The color of her skin was still somewhat tan from summer. Len felt his face heat up despite the fact that Rin had absolutely no intention of being 'suggestive' in any way, and he was glad that she wasn't facing him.

The blonde forced himself to turn away and bit down on the side of his inner cheek until he tasted blood. He winced a little at both the stab of pain and the shame welling up inside him for his perverse mind.

 _Yeah. Puberty really is a bitch. Puberty and hormones._

"So, um..."

 _I just need something to distract my mind for now._

"How'd your date go with Gakupo?"

There was a sudden absence of the sound of Rin's fingers typing on her keyboard.

"Ah... I'll talk about that some other time." She resumed her typing.

 _Why? Did something bad happen?_ Len felt a little worried inside. _The usual Rin wouldn't respond like this, would she? She would have been babbling nonstop about her date or something. Perhaps it didn't go smoothly, or..._

"Care to tell me about it?" He forced a small laugh out. "I know how guys are like when it comes to stuff like t-"

"Look, can we just talk about something else?"

They worked in an awkward silence for two more hours.

"I think we should wrap up for today..." Closing the lid on his laptop, Len stretched his arms and turned around. "... oh."

Rin was curled up in her beanbag chair, unmoving except for the gentle rise and fall of her back.

"Hey, you're going to catch a cold like this..."

Rin didn't respond. She just laid there out cold, her golden hair splayed out in a way that resembled the halo of an angel.

He sighed and lifted her up gently. Len laid her down on her bed and pulled the blankets over her, even placing Rin's favorite stuffed bunny next to her in a way so that her hand was curled around the plush toy.

He vaguely remembered him giving it to her as a present a long time ago.

He didn't know when that 'long time ago' was, but he knew that it was before these unwanted emotions had surfaced out of him. But he couldn't go back, could he? Len sighed and kneeled down next to her bed, watching the serene look on Rin's face as she slept soundly. She looked almost unrecognizable with her mouth shut, without that fierce yet bubbly look on her face.

How much he missed the _absence_ of those emotions.

Len shifted around and took a closer look.

Her lips looked soft.

He leaned down a little further so that their faces were nearly touching. He could feel Rin's warmth against him, almost feeling like she was gently caressing his burning cheek with her warm hands. The hands that he longed to hold and claim to be his own.

It didn't matter, right? She was asleep.

The space between their lips vanished.

It was quick, simple, nothing special. The angle was slightly awkward. Fireworks didn't go off and electricity didn't run through his body, but Len felt a sense of joy tingling deep within him. Sick and twisted as it was, at least he'd know that Rin's first kiss wasn't Gakupo's. He didn't care that the cliched first kiss had to be all magical and sparkling and all rainbows-and-unicorns, all Len cared was that it was Rin's first kiss and _he_ was the one who took it.

 _Rin's first kiss..._

The temporary satisfaction was quickly replaced by sorrow. He broke the contact abruptly.

What was the point of the kiss if she didn't do it with her own will? The only reason he claimed that first kiss of hers was because Rin was asleep, giving Len an unfair advantage of the situation. She couldn't return the kiss, couldn't wrap her arms around him and ask for another. Couldn't push him away, nor slap him in the face and scream at him to get his repulsive self away from her.

It felt empty.

 _How disgusting of me._

Len felt something warm and wet slowly running down the side of his cheek to the corner of his mouth. It tasted salty.

Sighing in frustration and trying unsuccessfully to ignore the stinging sensation in his nose and throat, Len got up and headed to the door, picking up his laptop along the way. No point in staying around, he just wanted to pack up and go home.

He stood there for a brief moment, burning in the image of her sleeping figure.

The door closed behind him.

* * *

Back at the room where countless plush toys were lined up in a long line on the shelf and where a paraphernalia of colored pencils were scattered on the slightly paint-splattered desk, there laid Rin, curled up in her bed. Her laptop laid crooked on her beanbag chair.

A finger brushed over her lips, curved into a perplexed frown.

The hand holding the stuffed bunny squeezed harder, wanting to vent out the mixture of confusion and other emotions that she couldn't put into words.

But there was nowhere to let it out.

* * *

 **A/N: This was probably the most difficult thing to write so far, I have no idea why.**

 **Don't worry, Len and Rin will end up together, for those of you wondering. But it's gonna take a pretty long time. Speaking of which, I'm planning this story to have about 16-18 chapters in total, give or take a few, so hang in there.**

 **Until next time, folks!**


	7. Distance Between the Two

**A/N: Dang, you guys really roadrollered me over with long reviews for the last chapter. But it makes me feel loved!**

 **This seemed kinda like a crappy filler chapter to me, with some typical high school drama. But I think sometimes such things are necessary in order for a story to flow more smoothly, since it helps to fill up any potential holes in the plot. Computers are a little kooky here (I'll explain later) so I ended up doing all this really hastily with minimal revising and such. Updating's gonna be choppy for a while.**

 **Oh well. I'll get back on track though, so no worries.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _Lunch was so awkwardly quiet today that even the noise of someone crunching on their chips seemed oddly out of place. Without Miku's excited chattering, everything seemed different. The seat next to her was empty, where Mikuo should have been. Instead, they were seated four seats away from each other, shooting an angry glare every so often. Even the other friends apart from Len, Rin, and Kaito could feel the tension between the twins._

 _Rin broke the peel of her orange. "So, err, what exactly happened?"_

 _Len leaned over and whispered, "You know that project that she and Mikuo were working on a few days ago? Apparently when the grades came back they both got a C- since Miku did her portion incorrectly. And, well, you can kind of imagined what happened next. According to Miku, , though, Mikuo really lost it and took a pair of scissors to her favorite shirt."_

 _"Oh, that explains it." She set down her orange and took a slice, biting into it. "He has always been kinda paranoid about his grades, so it was probably a big slap in the face to him."_

 _Len lifted one of his eyebrows at her. "Yeah, well, you're not one to talk about his temper, there was that time where you lost nine consecutive games of-"_

 _Rin flushed a bright red. "Well,_ excuse me. _"_

 _Mikuo looked up at the two blondes bickering and back down at his food, his angry green eyes turning a little sad. Kaito gave him a silent, sympathizing smile._

 _"Does Miku hate me?"_

 _Len drank his milk, noting how different he seemed from his usual slightly cold self. Mikuo seemed genuinely worried, even though the two twins had often fought and made up in the blink of an eye like nothing had ever happened._

 _"I'd say just... give her a little time." Kaito patted Mikuo on the back. "Because you don't really know how to recover from some stuff all that quickly."_

* * *

"She's not eating lunch with us _again_?"

Kaito nodded stiffly. His bite on his popsicle seemed almost angry, the way his teeth forcefully clamped down on the frozen dessert. Len growled and slammed his can of soda down on the table. Miku was talking to her other friends sitting next to her, but her worried green eyes kept darting back to Len every so often. Mikuo was silent, as usual.

"I dunno, I think she's upset about something." Kaito looked at Len. "Didn't you walk with her to school? You could've asked her about it."

Which was the problem. Rin _hadn't_ walked with him to school for the past week. He'd even knocked on her door this morning, hoping that she would come out and walk with him, but her mother only shook her head and gave him a sad smile, telling him that she "needed a little time".

For a moment, the blonde was worried if his shameful move on her the other day was-

"You know, _I_ may have an idea of why she's _so_ upset." Gumi looked over to Len. He didn't know whether to tell her to mind her own business or to tell her to keep on going. As far as he knew, she was one of the most well-known gossipers of the school. And, in terms of her character, she was... uncannily orthodox. The exact product of the cookie cutter society of the "cool group" of this damned high school. Twisting rumors all over social media? _Check._ Obsessed over physical appearance? _Check._ Playing around with the hearts of any boy she could get her hands on? _Check, check check._

But then he thought of Neru. How he had wrongly judged her as well until he saw her true self.

Perhaps Gumi just wanted to help out? Or was he just some other person that she could use for her entertainment?

He grimaced. Len didn't know what to make of her, so he just decided to go with the flow for the time being.

"Yeah, what is it?" He swiveled around in his seat to toss out his trash in the nearby trashcan and turned back to her, trying to hide the edge to his voice. " _Do_ enlighten us, if you will."

She snorted and gave a quick glance to her buzzing cell phone before continuing. "In case you haven't been paying attention, she and Gakupo are having ups and downs in this thing of theirs. Not that I would call it a 'relationship', since they haven't even officially declared it to the school yet. So I figured, well, one of them's gotta be another one of those shitty ass players. But they aren't gonna break it off anytime soon, I think. Why, Luki and this other bitch..."

Len was so glad when the lunch hour was over. Or he probably would've ended up with the contagious disease otherwise known as "idiocy".

But he was still worried.

The blonde checked the time on his cell phone. There was still five minutes before his next class, giving him just enough time to catch up with Rin. _She's going to history now, so I'd just cross paths with her on the way to algebra 2._ Sure enough, she was at her locker, sorting out her textbooks.

"Yo, Rin, what's up?" He ran over and whacked her on the shoulder.

"Nothing much." She brushed off his hand with hers. It was a small action, but it was enough to sending panic running through Len's veins.

"You sure about that?"

She sighed. It was the kind of sigh that people used when they were worn out from whatever nuisance it was that they were facing. "The ceiling's up."

An awkward silence ensued.

Len scratched his head, biting his lip. The only time he heard such a pissed off voice coming out from her mouth was when he accidentally hit her over the head with the Wii remote. Or that time when some jealous girl spread rumors that Rin had already 'lost her purity' to him in middle and- Well, that was a story for another time.

"Er, everything going okay?"

She merely stared back at him with blank blue eyes.

He tried again. "Hey, if there's something botherin-"

"I gotta get going, Len."

The slightly quivery tone in her voice, with a timorous hint to it, and the way she walked off quickly confirmed Len's biggest fears, reminding him of how _disgusting_ he was.

She didn't look back at him.

* * *

 _The next week_

* * *

"Okay, we _have_ to do something," Mikuo demanded, his fist clenched so tightly around the glass with coke that one would have thought he was trying to break it.

Len sighed, and looked over to where Kaito was stirring his ice cream soda, a mask of frustration on his face. He looked up at his friends. He looked over at Len and replied, "I tried to coax Rin back into having a chat with us, but it hasn't worked. At least not yet. I figured a one-on-one conversation would probably be able to pry something out of her, so I sent Miku to talk to her afterschool at the cooking club. Since Rin has been avoiding us and all."

"So that means that someone from our squad must have screwed with her along the way," Mikuo said.

Len felt his stomach flip flop as he replayed that dreaded kiss over in his head.

"Hey, guys, I got news."

The blonde heard the familiar tinkle of keychains of Miku's bag as she plopped it down and slid in next to her twin brother. He felt a shudder go through his spine at the sound of her voice, an ominous contrast to her usual high-pitched one. Being the only one who could tolerate the giggly gossipers at her school made her a source of information. Oddly enough, there would always be a rumor or two floating around saying that she was the one who started rumors, but Miku was but a passive listener; it was just that her more garrulous personality enabled her to slip into that group of people quite easily.

As for Len, the whole lot of them, with a few exceptions such as Miku herself, just seemed like a bunch of yammering chihuahuas. Some people were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, but they were probably born with a silver hoe (pardon the unintentional pun) because their mouths were so goddamn _big._

"Spill it." Mikuo replied in his usual, blunt manner.

"Apparently word's been going around that Gakupo and Rin have been quite bumpy lately, and it's all my scandal-loving girlfriends can talk about." She sighed and picked out a leek fry from Mikuo's platter. "Technically, the two aren't officially dating yet, but everyone's assuming that they are. Or will be. I talked to Rin and she-"

"So she'd talk to you about this crap and not _me_?" Len huffed and clenched his fist under the table. "What a fine _friend_ she is."

He spat out the word "friend" as if it was something distasteful.

"Can I finish?" Miku glared at him, but kept on going. "Normally, this isn't something special. It _shouldn't_ be something special. But the fact that both of them are popular and have already fallen apart at the beginning only reinforces the 'player-and-slut-gets-together-just-for-the-hell-of-it' stereotype. It's what everyone chooses to believe in-"

"Rin's _not a slut._ " Len felt his fist clench tighter. "Where the hell did you pick that up from?"

"Did I _say_ she was?" Miku snarled. "I said, it's what the _others_ have been saying."

"And you didn't do _anything_ to stop that shit?"

"Guys." Mikuo put down his spoon, his voice with a warning edge to it.

His sister continued on as if she hadn't heard him. "What _can_ I do? And to add on, there's this whole thing about how Rin was actually seeing _you_ on the side while she was-" The pigtailed girl held up quotation mark signs "- 'screwing' Gakupo. But I guess _you_ didn't care enough to step in yourself since _you_ don't care enough to-"

"Miku, you-"

As if on cue, Kaito grabbed onto Len and Mikuo onto Miku. One could almost smell the bloodlust that lingered in the air.

Their faces burned in embarrassment and they sat down, picking at their food in silence. The fight sounded an awful lot like some silly exchange between two elementary schoolgirls.

The anger ebbed away into a dull annoyance. But now that Len thought about it, innocent and pure as Rin was, it didn't stop her from being the victim of your typical high school rumors and drama, with people watching her every move, watching for a chance for her to fall and pounce on her. A deer running through the woods would always have to be wary of the pack of wolves that lurked in the darkness.

His stomach flipped again. Miku was right, in a way. Why hadn't _he_ done anything to stop the rumors? He was the one who was supposed to protect her, for heaven's sake.

"But Rin only told you about the rumors, right?" Kaito prompted Miku. "She didn't actually tell you how she _felt_ about the entire ordeal, so we only know what's circulating throughout the mind of the high school and not Rin herself."

"I... I don't know." The tealette put her head down in her hands, pressing her lips into a thin line. "I just hope she's okay."

"I think I may be partially responsible for this."

All heads turned to Len.

He felt his face heat up for the umpteenth time that day. "I-I mean, sure, she's probably acting a bit immature about this but, well, it's not like I'd really done anything _that_ bad, so-"

Kaito put his hand on Len's shoulder, using that best-friend-telepathy thing to calm him down.

Len sighed. "I don't really want to go into detail, but I had done something with her that probably affected our friendship a little. Pair the way she's acting so cold around me with the fact that she and Gakupo are also being awkward, you'd figure that everyone would think something is up. But, well..."

"There's still someone you can talk to." Kaito pointed out. "Someone that has a connection to Rin other than us. Rin wouldn't have shared whatever was troubling her mind about _whatever you did to her_ because she knows that someone from the squad would let slip of something in front of you sooner or later."

That night, with his fingers trembling, Len sent a text message to the person he least wanted to talk to at the moment.

* * *

 **A/N:** **I apologize that Mikuo and Kaito aren't particularly well-developed. I imagine Mikuo as someone who's kind of blunt or even crabby at times and Kaito as someone who usually acts all carefree and childish but is the big brother of the group of friends.**

 **This story probably won't be updated regularly until the middle of August rolls around since I'm currently at Taiwan and China, visiting my relatives. My access to computers is really limited there since most of the time I'm going around to different places or helping to run errands for my grandparents. My apologies to all.**

 **ChocolatePancake refuses to work on fanfictions unless I'm around, so yeah :/**

 **I won't disappear, don't worry, because if I do, he'd come and hunt me down and drag me back. With a sashimi knife.**

 **See ya next time~**


	8. Patching Things Up and Another Hole

**A/N: Holy crap. One freaking month. So sorry about that. Meanwhile, jet lag and random fevers are being bitches D:**

 **I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Weepmarshmellow's review, however. It actually hit a LOT of points I was feeling conflicted about. I agree that the whole superhero thing is something I'd like to avoid, since the whole idea of it is a bit ludicrous for a realistic story and is well-known as a cheap solution to get the characters out of problems with the plot.**

 **However, the protective instinct of Len is a driving point in this story, so I cannot leave that out. As a result, the design for the next chapter may be a little risky to the quality of this fanfic, but I'll work something out to balance everything.**

 **As for Len making mistakes, I think it may become excessive if I don't execute this story carefully enough. Of course, I don't want to make him unrealistically perfect (since he's already popular and has good grades), but I don't want to make this entire story a train wreck. I'm sure some readers may agree, that since this IS a romance story, I can't delay the romance for too long either.**

 **It's all about balance. Can't do too much of this or that. Like the perfect ratio of wasabi on sashimi.**

 **Sorry for the long A/N. On with the story.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _Len loved snow._

 _To him, it was the sheer beauty of smooth, pure whiteness that fascinated him. Not for Rin. She would jump and roll and cartwheel through the snow without any hesitation, and although he almost felt sorry to nature for the disturbance, he couldn't help but laugh when she pulled him along with her usual antics._

 _But right now the soft flurries had transitioned into something more heavy, more violent. One look at the sky and he decided it was time to go home to avoid anything dangerous from happening._

 _"Rin!"_

 _No response._

 _Len snorted in annoyance. The air-headed Rin never seemed to know when it was an inappropriate time to be playing, and she sure wouldn't have acknowledged the fact that it was snowing way too hard for them to be playing hide-and seek safely. He tried again._

 _"Hey, orange head! The snow's turning into a blizzard, I'm serious, we gotta go home!"_

 _The only sound he could hear was the growing loud winds that now threatened to take his winter hat off his head._

 _He whipped his head over to the where the slides were and ran over. Or rather, half-waddled half-stumbled over, considering that the snow was getting deeper with each passing moment. His blue eyes stung a little from the cold._

 _"Rin!"_

 _Len tried the patch of trees next. The branches were heavy and looked like they would break any second with the snow piling up on them. They would surely crush the small girl if she were to be trapped underneath. A shiver of not coldness but worry went up his spine._

 _When the snow became heavier yet again, he was immediately aware of the sick feeling in his stomach, the kind of feeling where you feel that something wrong would happen any moment. Len could put his hand straight out in front of him and he would have to strain his eyes to see it._

 _A stifled giggle reached his ears._

 _He ran over to the bushes, where the sound had came from, and breathed a sigh of relief._

* * *

"Nice to meet you here."

Len swung his pack over on a chair, near the bookshelf that Gakupo was flipping through quickly but quietly. The bookworm side to him seemed quite befitting to his polite, somewhat reserved character.

"So you know about all of it already, right?"

The blonde nodded.

Gakupo continued. "Initially, I admit, I was intrigued by the contrast between her fiery demeanor and her cute appearance. Perhaps it was that unorthodox combination that made me feel drawn in to her."

"Really?" Len asked. "I was actually surprised that you decided to go after her. I mean, they say that opposites attract, but your personalities just don't match up that well. It'd probably be a little awkward, I guess." Which wasn't a lie. It wasn't quite the appropriate time to state it, but if Gakupo and Rin were to become close friends, Len would picture a slight parent-child type of a relationship between the two.

"I think I was in love with the idea of being in love." He looked away from Len and went back to searching through the books lined up on the shelf. "Not Rin herself."

"Oh."

Neither of them said a word for a moment.

"I suppose you'd be feeling upset at me, naturally, and I can only blame my foolishness," Gakupo said, twiddling with his purple ponytail a little. "But I'm worried about her. You heard those rumors going around the school, I presume?"

An ambivalent swirl of feelings ran through Len's mind. He was sure that he was feeling a bit of anger towards the male sitting in front of him now, making a mess of Rin's life, but there was genuine look of apology provoked a different feeling. Judging from it, Len figured that Gakupo was truly worried about Rin.

 _As you should be_ , he thought sourly. But Len didn't say it.

It seemed strange to Len. The purple-haired samurai had always given off a grown-up sort of an air, yet he was confessing on something that seemed to be what a typical teenager would do. In a more adultlike fashion, nonetheless.

"I think she knew it too, and maybe she made the same mistake. She has been quite aloof lately." Gakupo sighed. "But I had a feeling that something else was bothering her, though she kept denying it."

Truth to be told, Len had, out of jealousy, wanted to search around Gakupo to see if he had any faults or a worse side to him that the blonde could point out to Rin. Maybe even convince her that he wasn't the right one. It was true that he wasn't the right one, but there was nothing _evil_ about Gakupo; he was anything but. Len was just wallowing in immature pettiness.

He felt rather guilty at the moment.

"I probably should take the matter into my own hands, then," Len muttered softly.

"It would be the best for us all. After all, you are the closest friend she has-"

"Th-That's because we're childhood friends, you know!"

Len felt embarrassed at the way he said it a bit too quickly. It sounded like he was denying his feelings, almost (which he probably was). The samurai looked down a little at the books in front of him, as if contemplating something. He was pretty sure Gakupo saw through him like glass right then, reading through his feelings as easily as the way one would read a book.

"You two won't hate me for the mess I've created?" He raised an eyebrow at Len, almost in a teasing manner. "Don't worry, it wasn't official anyhow. She still has all those _first times_ waiting _especially_ for you."

"Well, that's-" Len felt his face heat up.

"If you make her cry, though," Gakupo replied, grinning, "I won't accept it."

"Be quiet."

They fist bumped.

* * *

 _The next day_

* * *

Len trudged his way upstairs to where the student council meeting was held. In his arms were a box of papers with information on the organization of upcoming school events. The sweat that clung onto his skin came from the weight as much as from the anxiety brewing deep within his body.

When he flung open the door, he saw with Neru, Gumi, Luka, Ted, Teto, Piko, and a few others. No Rin in sight.

He almost panicked. Did she go as far as to skip the student council meetings in order to avoid him?

 _No, calm down._ It wasn't likely that she'd purposely skip it. Ditzy as she was at times, Rin wasn't one to run away from responsibilities, especially when it consisted of so many brainless fools. Maybe she was at the informational meeting for winter track, or maybe she had to go to the tutoring room to get some help on geometry (math wasn't exactly one of her strongest suits).

Len sighed and plopped down in a random seat, deciding to turn his attention to preparations for an upcoming fundraiser and a few new school clubs.

"Hey, worried about something?" Neru lifted one of her eyebrows at him. She was filling out a few papers on the budgets for upcoming student activities. Len was relieved to find that she had started to become more responsible about her class officer duties somewhere along the line. He wondered if the change was correlated with the rejection from a while ago, but he doubted it. Everything had gone back to normal in a short time afterwards. They'd become friends, even.

"Not really," he snapped back, a bit too harshly. Len stopped for a moment at her confused look and took a deep breath. "I was just worrying about where Rin was."

"Dunno. I think she had something to do with Akaito, he was with her earlier," she replied, frowning a little. "I can't imagine them becoming friends, though."

 _Akaito?_ Len gritted his teeth. He's been trying to hit on Rin for the past few weeks, so...

She probably read the worried expression on his face. "It could be because people heard that Rin and Gakupo weren't, what do you call it, 'compatible', so they decided to stay as friends for now. It went unexpectedly smooth, on the bright side," Neru explained. "On the other hand, you know how once people hear that a pretty girl isn't currently into any guys, all those desperate boys come running to her?"

But she's not the type of girl who'd just go after any guy...

"Of course, they could be just talking about random stuff. Or they had to go to the same place at the same time. Don't worry about it," Neru tried to reassure him. She stopped. It seemed that she feared Len would lose his temper should she go any further. Even words of comfort would be painful to him, for he knew that such words would be spoken only when something was going wrong and somebody wanted to prove him otherwise as means to make him less upset.

Neru's cell phone buzzed with a new text message, breaking the silence between the two of them. She opened the text and entered a quick response, stuffing it back into her pocket and returning to her papers.

It was then did Len realize that he hadn't texted Rin a very long time.

* * *

 _A few hours later_

* * *

Even after the meeting was over, Rin still hadn't answered his texts.

Len had decided to call her house phone to see if he could talk to her. Much to his disappointment, only her dad had answered, saying that she called him, asking if she could go to one of her friend's house for the night.

Which meant that Rin had her cell phone all along, and had just ignored his messages.

Fine. _Two could play this game._ He tossed the electronic device onto his bed, opening his binder to work on his homework. Hyperbolas were a pain in the ass, much like how his life was right now.

His cell phone buzzed. The blonde turned on the screen eagerly, hoping to-

 _Akaito?_

Len didn't want to answer the text when he saw that the caller ID wasn't from Rin, and he didn't even bother to open the text. He swiveled his chair back to his homework. That redheaded asshole probably just sent something along the lines of, "Hey, what did I miss at the meeting I was too lazy to attend?"

Well, even if the caller ID wasn't from Rin, he still would have refused to answer.

 _She doesn't need me anyway._

The blonde bit down on his pencil as the thought ran through his mind. It sounded surprisingly childish. Maybe he was the one being unreasonable here? Damn his pride for never correcting his own flaws to his temper.

The cell phone kept buzzing.

He sighed and slammed his binder shut, picking up the offending item to read the texts that showed up in quick succession on the screen.

A second later, he was up and out the door, a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. One hand was clutched tightly onto a jacket and the other was clutched onto his cell phone, as if he was worried that he'd lose them the way he could have potentially lost her from what happened a few mere moments ago.

* * *

 **A/N: Ugh, short chapter. But I think the next one would be better.**

 **I really enjoyed creating Gakupo's character, and somehow in my headcanon he (and Luka) are these grown-up looking people who sound all mature. The drawback to this is that, while I can picture their personalities clearly, the dialogue is sounds too overly formal.**

 **See ya'll later!**


	9. Warmth and worry

**A/N: Woo! We're back. Site's been glitchy, schools starting, yadda yadda. We also started a new story.**

 **That being said, I think it is time for Rin and Len to share a few moments together.**

 **Disclaimer in Pig Latin: I-hay o-day ot-nay own-hay ocaloid-vay, or-nay any-hay of-hay its-hay aracters-chay.**

* * *

 _The tension between the two blondes was so thick that one would have a hard time slicing through it with a butcher knife._

 _"Hey, Len?"_

 _He was silent, his face buried in the heavy scarf shielding him against the cold of the wind. Len just walked onward silently, one of his arms clutching tightly onto Rin. Occasionally she would struggle against him and break free of his grip, but he would just pull her back in a grasp tighter than before._

 _Len didn't say anything until they arrived at her house._

 _"You know how freaking worried I was?"_

 _Rin recoiled in shock at his dark tone, the wide cerulean eyes of hers clashing with an icy, angry blue. Len grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. Her mouth opened to say something, but only a small squeak came out._

 _"You are_ stupid. _I don't know how stupid you were up until then," he seethed through his teeth. "How dumb were you to not know how worried I was? If you wanted me to have a heart attack right then and there, well,_ great job _, you achieved your goal! But good thing I was still_ alive _to save your stupid ass."_

 _"But-"_

 _"Shut it. No buts." He opened her front door and practically threw her inside. "Get yourself some hot soup, a hot shower, blankets, I don't freaking care."_

 _"Uh-"_

 _"Bye."_

 _Len slammed the door and trudged his way through the snow back home._

 _He wasn't mad at her, of course._

 _Not really._

 _But he could now understand why his parents had always yelled at him whenever he came home with a huge scrape on his knee from biking or a cut down his arm from climbing a tree to retrieve a stray ball from the baseball game at the park._

 _It was then did Len understand the correlation between anxiety and anger._

* * *

When Len found her, she was shivering, her shirt reduced to blood-stained tatters. Her bow, more crimson than white, was wrapped around her arm in an effort to stop the blood seeping out from a wound.

Fifteen minutes ago, he had opened her text. Initially, he was puzzled on why she was using Akaito's phone to text, but it became apparent that Rin was in trouble when she asked him for a "jacket to cover up and some bandages for a wound".

He had wanted to question what exactly happened to her, but it wasn't the time for such matters, confused as he was.

Upon yanking open the storage door, he was met with the sight of the girl on a blue yoga mat, her petite body curled up in a corner. Len's face flushed at her poorly clothed state, the reason why she had asked him to bring an extra jacket along becoming apparent. He turned away and tossed the long garment at her, though the less level-headed part of him wanted to stare for a few seconds longer (Len mentally kicked himself for such indecent thoughts at a time like this).

The soft rustles of clothing complemented the awkward silence shared between the two blondes.

"What happened?" Len managed to croak out.

"Akaito kind of- well, he almost did _that_ to me," Rin replied promptly with a strange indifference in her tone. Oddly enough, Len couldn't detect any traces of fear in her voice. He wondered how these words could come out of her mouth with such ease.

"Rin, there's no ' _kind of_ ' or ' _almost_ '." Len tugged on the front of the jacket and buttoned it up. It reminded him of the time he helped her put on her pink jacket in first grade when she had cut her finger, rendering her unable to button up properly. He quickly averted his eyes from his exposed skin to her hands, resting by her side. They were colored in small blotches of red, presumably from the wound. A few cuts were scattered here and there, but nothing too serious. The small pocketknife on the ground didn't escape his notice, along with how it covered in the same red liquid that Rin was stained with.

Len gulped nervously and lifted her up, making sure that she was able to stand. She seemed okay. "Akaito either did it, or he didn't."

She turned her head towards him, a smile tugging at her lips. He wasn't able to tell whether it was forced or genuine.

"You worrywart."

"Me? A worrywart?" Len gestured his hand to the patches of red coloring Rin's body. "Look at yourself- splattered in blood, your clothes all ripped up and God knows what else!"

"Len, if he had the ability to really hurt me, I would probably have more than just a cut on my arm."

 _JUST a cut?_

Rin swiped up the knife that Len had seen earlier. "Akaito nearly succeeded in raping me, but, hey, you know me. I can kick anyone's butt, girl or guy. He wasn't that strong-"

"Y-you killed him?!"

"You dolt. I'm not _that_ crazy. You know the how sometimes animals try to play dead when a predator comes along?" Rin snorted and tossed the small weapon from hand to hand nonchalantly, as if it were a baseball. "I just pretended to be all submissive, and, for a good measure, I guess, he stabbed me in the arm with the knife-"

" _RIN._ " How the hell was she so freaking nonchalant about this shit?

She ignored him. "-and he did the whole 'if-you-want-to-do-this-the-hard-way-we-could-do-it-the-hard-way' thing, so I went along with the flow. He kinda let down his guard after he ripped off my top, though, so it only took a few punches before I tossed his ass out the shed. Kind of weak."

Rin flung the door opened and pulled Len along with her. He silently started to make their way home, walking closely beside her.

"Were you scared?"

He suspected that her display of confidence and bravery just then was a facade; though she tried to be the tough kid at times, her words earlier had were rather uncharacteristic of her. The whole idea of it all was overwhelming to him, the image of Rin actually attacking someone, even if it was for the sake of defense.

"Well, I was a bit worried." She looked down for a brief moment. "I mean, I think I did hurt Akaito pretty bad, though his wounds aren't bad enough to send him to the hospital or anything. I hope."

Len groaned in frustration. Such words were horrifically befitting to the very girl who never knew that the world was cruel to those who befriended justice. He didn't know how long it would take for her to learn that.

"But Rin, you're still a small girl. I don't freaking care if you beat up his ass. You gotta be more careful," Len snarled, his grip tightening on her, as if afraid that she would disappear if he let go. "And that dickhead deserved it. I don't understand why you should be _worried_ after what he'd done to you."

" _Nearly_ done to me," she corrected, standing up straighter. "But you saw how strong I was, right? So-"

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Len exploded, making Rin flinch beside him.

She turned her head away so that her eyes were averted from his, her pace slowing down.

"... I guess I was scared." She gulped. The smile on her face was clearly forced now. "But just a little."

Her voice was slightly raspy. Len heard a small sniffle.

"Rin, I-"

"Stop. Stop talking for now."

Though her body was trembling and her eyes were glassed over with tears, she still managed a smile.

"I'm alright, see? I'm still alive."

It never quite occurred to Len that Rin wasn't the princess that needed a white knight to save her, probably since because he had, naturally, always been right behind her back. She was aware that he knew her smile was just a facade to cover up her fear, but Len was pretty sure that Rin would rather die than admit to being afraid.

So he didn't push on any further.

It might have been sick of him to think about such things, but Len was strangely disappointed that he didn't get to play the role of the white knight- though he knew that it was just immature thinking. To say it in a more indirect manner, fairy tales such as those were just cheap recipes for a convenient start to cliched romances. Life wasn't a fairy tale.

"Wait, Rin."

She turned back at him. They were almost home.

"If you go back like this, your parents are going to get worried."

Presently, Rin passed by a puddle of water and immediately could see why Len had said that, seeing the reflection of herself in torn up clothing and splattered with blood.

* * *

 _15 minutes later_

* * *

"Lemme do it myself!"

"Absolutely _not_!"

Rin pouted in annoyance, but her face was turned into a grimace when Len dabbed a bit of antiseptic on her wounds. The painful sting made her flinch in response, and Len instinctively leaned back to avoid getting hit in the face.

"See, this is the reason I don't trust you with stuff like this!" He rubbed his temples in exasperation. "You're all clumsy and airheaded and who knows what will happen if I-"

"Hmph. Not true." Rin looked away from him and turned her head towards the table next to her, trying to hide her enbarrassment. Her eyes fell on the phone, set a bit crookedly; it relieved her to know that the police had promised to get to the bottom of this mess.

He held down her struggling body with one of his hands and whipped out a bandage, wrapping the white strip tightly around the gash on her arm. "Yeah, who was the girl who exploded the microwave after she put a damn egg in there?"

"We do _not_ speak of that again. That was a year ago."

They stared at each other for a while. Len didn't know what it was, but when he looked at the snarling frown on her face, he had to cover his mouth to muffle amused laughter. It came out as a snort.

 _She's too cute._

"I- just- you worry me. A lot."

Rin couldn't help but laugh along with him. Somehow, the bad memories and the pain in her arm faded away. "I get that from you all the time."

Len pulled her up. "Mmkay. Now that I got you all fixed up, I guess..."

His voice trailed off.

"... yes?"

"I called your dad a while ago and asked where you have been," Len explained. "He said that you told him that you were going to somebody's house for a sleepover."

"Oh. That." Rin sighed. "Akaito forced me to call my dad and tell him that, to prevent my parents from getting all suspicious. He broke my cell phone afterwords, though, so that's why I had to text you using his cell phone. He left it lying on the ground after I kicked him out. Some people don't know how to use pass code protection."

"Yeah... in other words, if you go back home right now, you'd have a lot of explaining to do."

"But I'm all right now, and we called the police earlier. I really want to avoid any more trouble for now..."

Silence.

Len usually thought before he spoke, but there were occasional exceptions. It came out of his mouth before he could register the words completely.

"You want to... stay at my house tonight?"

* * *

 **A/N: Next chapter I think I'll take a break from the plotline and add in some (really pointless) fluff.**

 **I know some of you would point out that Rin was slighly OOC in this chapter, but I think it was with reason. On the other hand, I am quite ambivalent about how well this chapter worked out and would like some feedback.**

 **By the way, don't worry about the upcoming stuff. They're both too pure to do anything too, uh, obscene. Ain't even an official couple yet.**

 **Bye~**


	10. Second Time

**A/N: Yasss tenth chapter. I apologize for the lack of updates; what with school and sports and after school activities, there's hardly any time for us to do stuff. Taking all APs doesn't help either. But, speaking of ten:**

 **"So what if there was a pun contest, and I sent ten puns to the contest to see which one would win, but in the end, no pun in ten did?" -ChocolatePancake**

 **I couldn't find something suitable to throw at him that time.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _The world around Len was silent, except for the sound of Rin's finger tapping on his window._

 _He threw his blanket off of him and leaned towards the window, sliding the pane open. A shiver ran through his body as the chilly air hit him, but Rin seemed unfazed by the cold, her eyes bright and showing no signs of sleepiness._

 _"Dang, Rin. Get back in your bed before you get a cold!"_

 _"It's not cold for me." Rin bounced a little on the branch she was sitting on. Her light weight seemed to be of no trouble to the tree. "And besides, I just wanted to talk to you."_

 _"Couldn't you have waited until morning?"_

 _"Didn't feel like it."_

 _Len gave up. Rin continued babbling away._

 _"Why'd you think our parents stopped letting us have sleepovers?" Rin suddenly asked, leaning back on the trunk of the tree. "It's kinda boring, when you have to sleep alone everyday."_

 _He shrugged, a look of confusion coming over his moonlit face._ _"I dunno. It's like once people get in their double-digit years, boys and girls become 'different'. Something like that. That's what my parents told me, at least."_

 _Rin snorted. "That's a stupid reason."_

 _He was about to agree with her, but Len heard footsteps headed towards his room._

 _"Hey, you might wanna get back. My parents are coming upstairs now. Night."_

 _"But- ugh." Rin pouted. "Fineeeee. G'night."_

 _Len shut the window and jumped back into his bed like he had been sleeping all along._

* * *

"... huh?"

Len bit down on his tongue and cursed silently for saying something so brash. If the girl he was speaking to wasn't Rin right now, he was pretty sure that she would have been more than a little surprised right now. Probably horrified, even.

"Ah, I was just thinking. It's alright with me, anyways, we have lots of room. And we haven't had a sleepover ever since middle school started."

 _I could've just asked her to call Miku or something. She's really laid-back when it comes to last minute stuff like this..._

"You sure it's fine?"

"Um, well, I mean, my parents aren't home tonight and- uh. Yeah. Whatever."

If he had been standing next to a cliff right now, Len would have thrown himself off of it with absolutely no hesitation.

"Oh. Sounds good to me." A small smile spread on her face. He nearly recoiled in shock at her reaction, like someone had just shoved a knife into his stomach.

 _Does she not see me as a man?_

Len stopped for a moment, his brain going off on tangents.

 _Or maybe she actually..._ His face burned with embarrassment at the thought of the certain... things... that could potentially occur. Damn him and his screwed up mind.

She grabbed his arm and dragged him upstairs to his room. He could tell that her injured arm hadn't lost much strength. "We can blast music and play video games all night and raid the fridge and no one would be around to yell at us. _Sweet._ "

Sometimes he wondered whether the clueless part of Rin was a blessing or a curse, and this time, he figured it was the latter.

But maybe she just wanted to revert back to her childish, immature self to temporarily cast away the horrors that had happened today, but he wouldn't have been certain on it. Len found her harder and harder to read with each passing moment.

* * *

 _Somewhere past bedtime_

* * *

Rin flopped down on his bed, completely worn out. The white Wii remote dangled off of her wrist by the strap. She let out a loud yawn.

"Can we stop for tonight? I'm tired and I wanna go to sleep."

"You're only saying that because I won three consecutive times in Super Smash Bros, but hey. Whatever works for you."

The remote missed his head by a few inches.

"It's past midnight anyways." She sat back up and stretched her arms, looking over at the clock sitting next to his bed. "What about we sleep together like we did back then?"

"Rin?!" Len choked out.

"I mean, with two futons. You know." Judging from her flustered reaction and darting eyes, he guessed that Rin probably realized what a _stupid_ thing she's just said. "The bed's not big enough."

Len just nodded to save himself from yet another awkward moment.

"Oh. Um, yeah. Why don't you go take a shower while I prepare the blankets and stuff?" He dug out some clothes from his dresser and tossed them over to her. "Sorry, this is all I can find."

She trailed her hand over the soft fabric. "Ah... I don't mind. Thanks."

A minute later, while he was smoothing out the futons, Len heard the sound of running water.

He gulped and flushed a deep red, stumbling away to find his headphones to blast on music and block out the... distracting noises. He quickly dug it out of his drawer and turned the volume to the maximum, gladly exchanging his eardrums for his sanity. Though even with the music blaring through his ears, he still couldn't help but panic a little over the situation he was tangled in right now.

 _Normally, it wouldn't be right for a girl and a guy to stay under the same roof for the night, but we did have sleepovers when we were younger, so it wouldn't be any different... But the last one we had was at least four years ago..._

He gritted his teeth, his fist clenching and unclenching. He wished that time would revert them back to the past, where the burning feelings he felt towards Rin were absent, completely void from his life.

 _Rin's just still a little scarred from what happened today... it'd make sense that she doesn't want to be alone for n-_

"Hey, Len?"

"Waugh!" Len flinched and turned around abruptly, nearly knocking the stack of papers off of his desk.

Rin was wearing the oversized shirt and pajama pants that he had given her. Her blonde hair was sleek and damp, a few water droplets at the ends of her golden locks. Her face was flushed from the heat of the shower.

"You have a hair dryer I can use?"

 _I can help you dry your hair, if you'd like to. I bet it'd feel really soft and silky against my fingers._

In the end, all he could do was shove the hair dryer over to Rin and stagger over to the shower himself, hoping the blast of cold water would get rid of the nervous sweat sticking to his skin.

* * *

 _2:32 am_

* * *

Normally, Len would have been asleep by now, but somehow his brain refused to let him do so.

From the way Rin was breathing next to him, he guessed that she was wide awake as well. Knowing her, she was probably focusing all her energy on keeping herself from activating that motormouth of hers in the middle of the night.

Nah. Her mind was most likely someplace else.

"Can't fall asleep, huh?" He whispered.

"Can't," she murmured.

Len turned his body towards hers, a strange feeling deep inside him gnawing away.

"... feeling a little scared?"

She didn't respond. He expected as much.

He rolled back over, but when he did so, Len felt a softness press up against his body and turned his head back, opening his eyes groggily. He in a sharp breath when his eyes met the sight of Rin curled up next to him, her eyes half-closed.

"Hey. _Hey_. What're you doing?"

"Actually, I'm not all that scared. I just wanted an excuse to snuggle for a bit." She yawned and nuzzled deeper into him, burying her face into his shirt. Len wondered if she could hear his heart about to explode, but nonetheless returned the hug and pulled her closer. Her hair tickled his chin slightly, and he could faintly smell the shampoo mixed in with her scent. He softly stroked her head the way he would do with a baby kitten.

Len wondered if he should say the three damn words to her.

 _It wouldn't work that way. Not at this moment, anyhow._

It seemed to befitting of the situation they were in right now, but if he said it under these circumstances, how would she knew that he was telling the truth?

 _You're just making this difficult for me, aren't you?_ Len sighed in exasperation. His arms were still wrapped snugly around her upper back, but he felt a twitch in his fingers when she moved ever so slightly in her sleep, moving against his chest.

 _No. This is just impossible._

"Rin! Over to your side! You're hogging up all the space!"

 _More like, I'm trying to keep myself together and you're not helping shit._

She squealed as his hands grabbed her sides and practically threw her back. Her breath was momentarily knocked out for a second as her back hit the soft futon. Len didn't even bother to apologize, he was so flustered.

"What? No goodnight kiss?"

"... what?"

She tensed up, aware of what she had said. But she still continued. "If you're going to kiss me, at least do it when I'm awake, okay?"

 _So she knew about it...!_

Len was sure his heart stopped for a second. All his brain could register at the moment were her words, playing over and over in his mind like a broken record. He wasn't sure what to make of it. Her voice was nearly monotone and devoid of any emotion: no sarcasm, no anger, nothing. It somehow made the entire situation even more terrifying.

"What difference does it make either ways?" Len snapped. "It's not like you're going to-"

Rin focused her gaze on him, the pale ray of moonlight illuminating the icy blue eyes of hers. Almost as if she was trying her best to look like she had herself together, even when she wasn't. Len didn't mention it.

"I dunno. I mean, people have always told me that the first times are always special and magical or whatever." The iciness of her eyes were replaced with a more watery look. She seemed to notice the fact and averted her gaze, hugging her blanket to herself. The water was frozen over again as she did so. Len could almost feel the cold. "I guess I missed my chance to share those stereotypical happy first times with you. And the one thing that we did wasn't even done properly."

Such a naive way of thinking. If they had been in a different situation, Len would have found what she said to be amusing in a way. But how was he to tell her that happiness wasn't dependent on the chronology of events, that idealism wasn't real? He sighed and wriggled closer to her, poking her shoulder.

"Hey, Rin?"

"Mm? Yeah, sorry about going all emo there. It's been a tough day."

"What about your second times?"

She didn't respond to him. He wondered if she was angry at him.

"Rin, just look at me."

She sighed and turned herself towards him, and the sudden warmth of Len's arms around her and his lips pressed against hers completely melted the layer of ice.

In his crumbling mind, he was screaming out his plea to God, drowning out the deafening sound of his heart beating, that everything would be all right this time.

 _Please._

 _Don't make me suffer again. Don't make_ her _suffer again._

As if to answer his prayers, Len felt her arms encircle around his back, pulling him closer to her and erasing the line between fantasy and reality. Len gripped her shoulders even more tightly, a dizzy feeling taking over his head.

He broke their connection, a dark shade of red coloring his face when he realized what he had just done. Any longer and he surely would have lost control, and he didn't want to ruin anything else. Len gathered up the courage to look at her face once more, and the incandescence of her eyes reassured him that he had managed to piece back together the glass that was once broken.

"Get back to sleep before I smash a pillow in your face." He slumped back into his futon and pulled the blankets over his head, the look of embarrassment on his face turned away from Rin.

"Wow. So much for romance."

Len heard her laugh. He almost forgot how cute it sounded until now.

For the first time in a month, he slept peacefully.

* * *

 **A/N: "And then they lived happily ever aft-"**

 **Psh. No.**

 **I'm not making this any more cheesy than it already is. There's still some stuff coming up anyhow.**

 **See ya'll later~**


	11. Taking the Training Wheels Off

**ChocolatePancake: Well damn. I've never thought I'd place a story on hold for so long. Unfortunately school gets in the way all the time, so...**

 **I'd put my grades up for adoption because I can't raise them myself.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid, nor any of its characters.**

* * *

 _From what Len has seen when he visits her house after school, the first thing Rin would do when she got home was scarf down an afternoon snack. Well, a "snack" in a glutton's definition- he had witnessed her eating a whole pizza before. (That time, Len just decided to eat his usual banana.)_

 _So when she just took a sip of her water and stared blankly outside the window, he knew something was up._

 _"Something wrong?"_

 _"Yeah." Rin fiddled with a loose strand of her hair. "I'm scared. You know, when you go from middle school to high school. The school's twice as big and there's a bunch of homework and people get drunk at parties."_

 _Len's eyebrow twitched. "Uh... I guess you'll be fine."_

 _"You 'guess' I'll be fine?" She looked at him, eyes colored with doubt._

 _Rin was the type of a person who had never and will never be broken by wind or rain._ _Hearing those words coming from someone so dauntless started to make Len anxious as well._

 _Probably it was just the fear of failure that scared her more than the actual hardships themselves, but pointing that out wouldn't make her feel better, would it?_

 _"Transitions are always difficult. And there really isn't much you can do about it." Len shrugged half-heartedly._

 _"Yeah," Rin replied after a moment of thought._

 _Without another word, she suddenly hugged his arm, much like what she would do with her comfort blanket from her earlier years. "You'll stick with me though. I know that. I'll be fine if you help me through."_

 _"You'll be fine." His body stiffened slightly and he returned the hug awkwardly. "I'll always be there for you."_

 _That last part sounded weird to him, but he wasn't sure why._

* * *

Len awoke to the smell of pancakes. Banana pancakes.

He sat up, groggily rubbing his eyes, and looked over at Rin's empty futon, her blanket folded up neatly. There was a sizzling noise resonating from the stove in the kitchen, where he could faintly hear Rin singing to herself.

 _It's almost as if we're a married couple, isn't it?_

Len flinched at his thoughts and flushed a bright red.

 _What the hell._

He poked his head through the kitchen door and saw Rin spooning a ladle of pancake batter into the pan. Not seeming to notice his presence, she picked up the spatula and tried to flip the pancake, only to result in a squeak of pain from the hot splatter.

"Um..."

Rin spun around upon hearing his voice, laughing sheepishly. "Eh heh heh... good morning."

Well, some things never change.

"Hey, Len, you want a good morning kiss?"

(Len pinched himself to make sure he _really_ was awake.)

But before he could feel that wonderful softness pressing against him, he heard the front door slam open.

"I'm home, Len!"

 _Oh, shit._

"R-Rin," he whispered. "Go hide somewhere!"

"Wait, why? What's the big dea-"

Len's mother stepped into the kitchen, bags of groceries swinging from each hand. "I bought some food on the way back. Your dad had to leave immediately for work but he'll be back in the afte-"

He felt a cold sweat break over his skin when he saw his mother abruptly freeze upon the sight of Rin, who was cluelessly smiling, back to working on the pancakes. Without the flips this time, at least.

 _Shit shit shit._

Of course the idiot wouldn't have known what her and Len's disheveled appearance (not to mention the fact that she was wearing his clothes and cooking for him) would have implied about the situation they were in. Though, of course, it was purely innocent.

(Len did briefly wonder what would happen if the situation wasn't as innocent- and immediately slapped himself mentally afterwards. The mind of a teenage male _really_ wasn't that innocent, after all.)

"Len, come over here for moment." She pulled him out the kitchen, leaving a very confused Rin behind. "Don't tell me you took our _neighbor's_ only daughter and your _best_ friend and-"

"No, no, _no_ , mom, it's not what you think it is." He threw his arms up in frustration. Ugh, what a cliched statement of denial. "Long story short, I'll explain in detail later. Rin was nearly raped by this jerk from our school, and she kinda beat him up but she didn't want her parents to know about it. So I brought her here to take care of her for the time being. We already called the police and everything, don't worry about it."

His mom looked at him with an expression of disbelief. (Len couldn't blame her for feeling that way, though.) But after what seemed to be the longest minute of his life, she sighed and went back to taking care of her bags. "Well... I guess if everything is settled, that's fine. Just make sure to tell her parents what happened, okay?"

He breathed a sigh of relief when she left, and slumped down against the wall.

"Hey, Len. You never said good morning to me, did you?" Rin came over and sat down next to him, leaning forward to give a quick kiss to his cheek.

"Y-Yeah. Good morning." He grabbed her arm and spun her around so that her lips were perfectly aligned with his before he pressed them against his own.

The whole good morning kiss, huh. It was kind of like reliving a fantasy that previously existed only in his imagination.

But now what?

* * *

 _8:00 pm_

* * *

Len wasn't one who looked at photos very often, but the small blue album in the corner of his bookshelf somehow intrigued him at the moment.

Blowing the bit of dust off of the front cover, he opened the book up to find page after page of memories from his childhood.

And- a lot of them consisted of him and Rin. Always together, walking home from school together, playing together. It was hard to imagine that everything was perfectly platonic back then.

Would things have been different if they weren't next door neighbors? If they weren't best friends who had known each other since childhood?

He flipped a few more pages.

Fast forward a little, he found himself looking at pictures of him and her in middle school- when things started to change just a bit, though he wasn't very aware of it at the time. Rin was a bit taller, and there was a very faint air of maturity. Maybe it was the way she dressed, or how she smiled in the pictures?

He wasn't too sure of that, but he did know that he didn't look at her as a woman then. At least, he was pretty sure of it.

A slight twinge of regret hit him. Suddenly Len almost didn't want him and Rin to have such a long history together, as childhood friends who grew up side by side. He skipped over that state of rapid heartbeats and lovesick anxiety, which was something Len was sure every other person has experienced at least once.

And what if- in skipping all of that, he couldn't build a true relationship with Rin? It was a possibility that he was dating her only out of convenience.

The level of comfort between them might have presented itself as a double edged sword in disguise, Len figured. Because from here onwards, when they go out to the movies or the cafe together, he _needed_ to be aware that it was a _date_ \- not just a casual hanging out between friends.

And what was he supposed to do? Dress a bit more nicely and hold her hand? He was afraid that the sudden change in dynamics might appear to be too unnatural and even weird her out.

He flopped back on his bed and flipped through the other pages of nostalgia, hoping to take his mind off of his troubles for a while longer.

He came across a picture of them when they were about eight years old, riding a bike at the local park. Len remembered the time he had taken the training wheels off of his bike. He'd been unsure of himself, his feet pushing down on the pedals while trembling, even if he thought he already knew what to do.

One wrong swerve of the wheel, and he was afraid that he'd come crashing to an end- an end that was more painful than a couple scrapes on his knees.

* * *

 _Somewhere the next day_

* * *

Twenty four hours had passed and Len was still clueless on how this foreign concept called "dating" worked.

He was pretty popular, but he'd never really ventured into this kind of unknown territory until now. What the average female brain looked like was still a mystery to him, and he wasn't sure he really knew what Rin was thinking, despite the fact that they grew up together.

 _Maybe Miku would know?_

He picked up his cell phone and dialed the tealette's number. Having another close female friend was always pretty convenient, although he knew he had to brace himself for the oncoming questions and gossip that he was going to be peppered with later.

"Miku?"

"Oh, hey, what's up?"

"So uh... have you ever read one of those books with those romance tips? You know, the stuff that teaches you how to date? If you do, I'd like to borrow-"

There was a snort and a shriek. Len grimaced a little and cursed silently to himself. He wasn't sure what it was, but he had definitely just asked something incredibly stupid. Then again, he was pretty sure that the brain of the female species would have perplexed even the wisest of scientists

"My God. I figured it's about time that you finally got a girlfriend. Who is it? Oh, wait, no questions asked, of course it's Rin. Took you hell of a loonnng time."

The blonde male pressed his lips into a thin, frustrated line and imagined a piece of duct tape over her unfiltered mouth of sass.

Miku rambled on. "Those books don't teach you crap, though. They just assume what every girl wants is the same old stuff and that you all started out as either strangers or friends who haven't known each other for a l-"

"Yeah, yeah," Len interrupted her, realizing that maybe Miku wouldn't really have an idea either. She hadn't dated anyone yet, either, right?

But... Hm.

"Speaking of which, aren't you... ya know, getting a little bit too close with that ice-cream-obsessed guy? Have _you_ asked him out yet?"

"W-what?" Miku's flustered voice rose an octave higher than usual (if it was possible, that is). "Why would you suddenly mention him?"

"Karma likes to play with people. Annoying people."

"I'm going to block your number-"

"Alright sorry, sorry." Len tried his best to suppress his laughter.

"Well, then. Guess I'll be seeing you later. But you have to tell me some good stuff about you and Rin later."

Len hung up and tossed his cell phone back onto his bed. There was some history homework he had to finish up.

Stupid as it sounded, he wondered if he knew how to love Rin correctly. He sure hoped he did.

* * *

 **BlueberryMuffin: There's all these mangas about close friends smoothly sliding into a relationship, and p** **eople forget about the awkward stuff that comes with the transition. Fantasized romance is too ideal for real life.**

 **That being said, my parents are HUGE manga nerds. Even met through a manga club that my dad started in college.**

 **So I guess I was born from manga...**

 **See you guys (hopefully pretty soon)!**


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